Whale Talk | 
 enlarge | Author: Chris Crutcher
Publisher: Laurel Leaf
Category: Book
List Price: $6.99
Buy Used: $1.99
You Save: $5.00 (72%)
New (32) Used (48) from $1.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  79 reviews
Sales Rank: 13280
Media: Mass Market Paperback
Reading Level: Young Adult
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 224
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 6.8 x 4.2 x 0.7
ISBN: 0440229383
EAN: 9780440229384
ASIN: 0440229383
Publication Date: December 10, 2002
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Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Help save a tree. Buy all your used books from Green Earth Books. Read -> Recycle -> Reuse!
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Amazon.com Review
T. J. Jones is black, Japanese, and white; his given name is The Tao (honest!), and he's the son of a woman who abandoned him when she got heavily into crack and crank. As a child he was full of rage, but now as a senior in high school he's pretty much overcome all that. With the help of a good therapist and his decent, loving, ex-hippie adoptive parents, he's not only fairly even-keeled, he has turned out to be smart and funny. Injustice, however, still fills him with fury. So when big-deal football star Mike Barbour bullies brain-damaged Chris Coughlin for wearing his dead brother's letter jacket, T.J. hatches a scheme for revenge. He assembles a swim team (in a school with no pool) made up of the most outrageous outsiders and misfits he can find and extracts a conditional promise of those sacred letter jackets from the coach. After weeks of dedicated practice at the All Night Fitness pool, the seven mermen get good enough not to embarrass themselves in competition. The really important thing, though, turns out to be the long bus rides to meets, a safe place to share the hurts that have made them who they are. Meanwhile, T.J.'s father, who has taken in a battered little girl to ease his lifelong guilt over his role in the accidental death of a baby, tangles with another bully--her stepfather--and his growing murderous rage. Chris Crutcher, therapist and author of seven prize-winning young adult books, here gives his many fans another wise and compassionate story full of the intensity of athletic competition and hair-raising incidents of child abuse. (Ages 12 and older) --Patty Campbell
Product Description
There’s bad news and good news about the Cutter High School swim team. The bad news is that they don’t have a pool. The good news is that only one of them can swim anyway. A group of misfits brought together by T. J. Jones (the J is redundant), the Cutter All Night Mermen struggle to find their places in a school that has no place for them. T.J. is convinced that a varsity letter jacket–exclusive, revered, the symbol (as far as T.J. is concerned) of all that is screwed up at Cutter High–will also be an effective tool. He’s right. He’s also wrong. Still, it’s always the quest that counts. And the bus on which the Mermen travel to swim meets soon becomes the space where they gradually allow themselves to talk, to fit, to grow. Together they’ll fight for dignity in a world where tragedy and comedy dance side by side, where a moment’s inattention can bring lifelong heartache, and where true acceptance is the only prescription for what ails us.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 74 more reviews...
 Balance and reason wins out against racism and abuse October 6, 2008
T J, whose full name is The Toa Jones (there's a joke there if you pronounce it correctly), relates the story of his eighteenth year, the year he graduates. He has been asked by his English teacher to form a college swimming team, but there is no pool, and it seems T J is the only swimmer.
T J gives a frank account of events of that year, not omitting his own short-comings. Raised by adoptive parents, he being the biological son of a European mother and Japanese/black American father, in a predominantly white small town outside Wahington, he struggles to keep his temper in check in the face of the many injustices resulting from the racism and bigotry of small-minded jocks.
Accepting the challenge of forming a swim team he assembles a curios bunch of misfits and the downtrodden and champions their cause as he strives to attain a coveted varsity Letter-Jacket, normally the preserve of high achievers in the accepted sports, for each member of his team.
It is a heart-warming tale as the team unite in their cause despite the fact they seemed doomed to failure from the start. At the same time likeable T J has his own problems to deal with, but here his stable family upbringing helps him to maintain balance despite himself.
At times funny, at times moving, with a tense and gripping finale, it makes for an involving story. It does get a little preachy at times, but it is a good cause, showing up racisms and family abuse for what it is; written by someone who clearly has some experience in such matters.
 Not just for kids! March 19, 2008
A good story with a universal theme in touch with numerous current social issues - Whale Talk is worth listening to!
Good story January 1, 2008
I was quite impressed by this book. I really enjoyed it. I don't understand why it's one of those books that is "challenged" by people. Here's an idea: read the books your kids are reading and discuss with them if you feel there's something questionable.
Hilarious, moving & instructive July 13, 2007
This book might win a Newberry Award if it were for younger kids and didn't use naughty language. That's the sort of thing I'd compare it to.
I've never written a review before, but this book, which I listened to in my car with my 12-year-old daughter, was wonderful. We both laughed out loud a number of times; it's extremely witty (and the audio narrator does an excellent job). It's heart-breaking at times (child abuse, loss). And it's very instructive for young people trying to make sense of the world, especially complex issues involving race, psychology, child abuse, and such.
It's arguably a bit much for a 12-year-old -- lots of questionable language (authentic, but "naughty"), and a few references to people having sex (nothing graphic, though). I'd prefer it for years 15 and up, but my daughter seemed to get a lot out of it, and the parts that worried me ... well, I hope they sort of went over her head. But I was delighted to have her hear about life from the perspective of a multi-racial kid, especially one who accepts himself but still has to put up with grief from morons in his high school.
Talking Whale? June 13, 2007
Whale Talk
Do you have a big heart full of the kind of love that you would give a friend or even a complete stranger? That's how the Tao (pronounced The Dow) is in the book Whale Talk by Christopher Crutcher. The book takes place in Spokane, Washington. T.J Jones (The Tao) and his teacher, Mr. Simet, get together a swim team for Cutter High School. Mr. Simet has one reason for the swim team, and T.J. has another for the team, but it's the complete opposite of Mr. Simet. T.J. wants to help Chris Coughlin out of his bulling problem (Chris is handicapped). T.J. ends up going to the State championship and winning two events. But after the Championship, a tragedy strikes, one that will haunt T.J. until the day he dies.
My favorite part of the book is when Chris Coughlin gives T.J. some love back. Through out this book, T.J. shows Chris the love a friend would give a friend. This makes it special because T.J. loved Chris as a friend, that Chris gave him love, in the form of something, in return, even when it wasn't expected.
The theme of the book is love. This book shows that if the world doesn't have love, it has hate and if you don't have love, you have hate. With out love in the world, there would be no peace. It also shows us that even if you are a different color you still have the right to be loved.
This book was one of the best books I've read. I would recommend it to anyone who has a big heart with enough love for everyone in the world. I liked this book so much, because it caused me to stop and think, to check and see if I had enough lover in my heart for everyone in the world, just as the characters had.
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