Ghost

An inner-city boy learned to run when he fled with his mom from his weapon-brandishing father. He is poor, but he aspires to be a great basketball player. He stops by a track-team practice and decides to show them what fast is. While the fast boys are racing, he runs along side to show that he is fast. The coach immediately warms to him and invites him to join the team. Over the next few weeks he goes through his ups and downs, getting into trouble (and often getting bailed out by the track coach.) Eventually he starts to enjoy track and gets close to the team and the coach. In the end, his family comes together to support him in his meet and he sees that the school "bully" runs track for another team.

The book is well paced. The main character has many flaws. I felt sympathy for him as he did things that would turn out badly. Alas, the "bad" usually ended up being not nearly as bad as it could have. It would have helped to have a few more consequences in order to have a more fulfilling reward. The book also broke with sport-book cliches and ended right before the big race took place. It felt slightly unfulfilling, but still seemed to work.