Athletic Shorts (Six Short Stories) - Chris Crutcher

This book served as a strong example of a collection of short stories that can be used in the classroom. The stories were very real with solid and relative characters, exciting plot points and meaningful outcomes. The stories have clear messages of moral that young adult students will easily relate to and be able to understand. The stories in brief summary are as follows:

1. Angus Bethune: An overweight and hilarious adolescent tells about his experience as Senior Winter Ball King as well as his interesting family circle background. Starts the book off in a light-hearted and fun way.

2. Johnny Rivers: a struggle to to satisfy his infamous Dad, leads to Johnny against his Dad in a public wrestling match and a family change that brings plenty of tears.

3. Petery Shropshrire: Johnny Rivers' best friend pushes him into another wrestling match that will embarrass Petey for life if he loses, which is likely. His opponent has a different point of view (among other differences) that leads Petey to a life-long lesson, and maybe even a new girlfriend.

4. Lionel Serbousek: a high school senior who lost his family in a tragic accident has to put his feelings aside and help a long lost friend that no longer has a happy place in his life, and for good reason. It's life or death.

5. Jack Simpson: a young student trying to overcome many issues in school, especially the one thing he has been taught to stay to true: hating people because of their race. Can Jack save himself without letting his father down? - This one is a very good moral story!

6. Louie Banks: Still in pain after the loss of his girlfriend who taught him to fight in what he believes in, Louie meets Darren and his life begins to change. But Darren has secrets that Louie must keep. Throughout this story, Louie struggles with right and wrong and most of all death.


Phewwww, this book was really good. I would love to be able to teach it in my classroom (planning around a text!) and would reccommend it for reading to my students very often. It's a good thing to give the students with reading capability issues a good short story to read, and these stories will give them tons of literary elements in a short time that make the stories really rich and fun to read!