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Ghost (Track)

by Jason Reynolds

4.31 · Rating Details · 1,764 Ratings · 471 Reviews

Ghost wants to be the fastest sprinter on his elite middle school track team, but his past is slowin....

Hardcover, 192 pages

Published August 30th 2016 by Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books

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Lists with This Book

2017 Mock Newbery

70 books — 273 voters

The Star-Touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi

The Secret of a Heart Note by Stacey Lee

2016 YA/MG Books With POC Leads

212 books — 225 voters

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Sep 26, 2016 Hannah Greendale rated it really liked it

Shelves: middle-grade

Ghost is a deeply moving book with several important messages for young readers.

Castle Crenshaw goes by the name Ghost, because he's a wicked fast runner. The first time he ran -- truly ran -- he was running for his life: running ain't nothing I ever had to practice. It's just something I knew how to do.

Now that he's older, Ghost puts his natural talent to work by running track. But he's not just running toward the finish line, he's running away from his past and the anger he's got buried insi ...more

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Sep 21, 2016 Donalyn rated it it was amazing

Shelves: children-s-realistic-fiction, 2016-nerdy-book-club-awards

You could pass this book to hundreds of kids and they will love it. Delighted that Jason Reynolds is writing a series for middle grade readers, so kids can grow up with his books.

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Aug 10, 2016 Betsy rated it it was amazing

Shelves: multicultural-fiction, sports, middle-grade-realistic-fiction, realistic-fiction, african-american-characters, diverse, lower-income

This is a generalization, but in my experience librarians really enjoy reading within their comfort zones. They’ll travel outside of them from time to time but always they return to the books that they like the most. Children’s librarians are just the same. The fantasy readers stick to fantasy. The realism fans go with realism. Graphic novel readers with comics. When I served on a yearly committee of librarians in New York I’d notice that some books were difficult to get anyone to read. Horse bo This is a generalization, but in my experience librarians really enjoy reading within their comfort zones. They’ll travel outside of them from time to time but always they return to the books that they like the most. Children’s librarians are just the same. The fantasy readers stick to fantasy. The realism fans go with realism. Graphic novel readers with comics. When I served on a yearly committee of librarians in New York I’d notice that some books were difficult to get anyone to read. Horse books, for example, just sat on our shelves untouched. Nonfiction could take some prodding. And as for sports books . . . forget about it. Nobody ever got near them. Still, you can’t give up on them. Mike Lupica and Tim Green may rule the field but that doesn’t mean other people don’t make a lot out of athletics. If our Newbery winning The Crossover by Kwame Alexander taught us anything, it was that. Now Jason Reynolds, a young adult author until this year, has produced a middle grade novel centered on that must unlikely of sports: track. It skirts the clichés. It dodges the usual pitfalls. It makes you care about a kid who keeps messing up over and over and over again. It’ll make you like sports books, even if you can’t generally stand them. And now we’ve got to find a way to get a lot of it into the hands of kids. Stat.

Call him Ghost. You can call him Castle Crenshaw if you want to (that’s technically his name) but he’s been calling himself Ghost ever since the night his dad got drunk and threatened Castle and his mom with a gun. Ghost learned to run that night and you might say he’s been running ever since. He’s got a load of anger inside that he doesn’t know how to deal with so he tends to take it out on others at school. Then one day he spots a track warm-up and takes an instant dislike to the albino kid in the expensive tracksuit. Without thinking about it twice Ghost beats the guy on the track, running on the outside, which gets the attention of the coach. Coach begs Ghost to join and Ghost reluctantly agrees but it isn’t what he expected. The other kids there all have their own lives, few of them easy. The running is much harder than anything Ghost has ever experienced before. And then there’s the fact that no matter how fast he is, Ghost can’t run away from trouble. It follows him and if he’s not careful it’s going to follow him right onto the track.

Baseball. Basketball. Even football. These are the sports of fiction. I doubt anyone has ever run any statistics on it, but if you were to gather together all the children’s sports books and group them by type, the baseball books would undoubtedly outweigh all the others 2:1. That’s because baseball is a game with a natural rise and fall to its action. Basketball has speed and football has brute force, all good things when writing a story. Track? In track you run and then you stop. At least that’s how I always looked at it. For Jason Reynolds, though, it’s different. He didn't write this book with track as a single focus. He looks at what the sport boils down to. Basically, this is a book about running. Running from mistakes (forgive the cliché), from very real threats, for your life, and for your team. Why you run and where you run and how you run. And if that's where you're coming from, then track is a very good choice of a sport indeed.

On paper, this book looks like it’s the sort of story that’s all been done before. That’s where Reynolds’ writing comes in to play. First off, it’s worth noticing that Mr. Reynolds is blessed with a keen sense of humor. This comes to play not just in the text but also in little in-jokes here and there. Like the fact that one of the runners (that, I should mention, gets cut later in the book because his grades are slipping) is named Chris Myers. Christopher Myers is the son of Walter Dean Myers, and a friend to Jason Reynolds. I love Jason's descriptions too. Mr. Charles at the corner store, “looks just like James Brown if James Brown were white. . .” Or Ghost saying later, “… for something to make you feel tough, you gotta be a little bit scared of it at first.” There are some pretty fantastic callbacks hidden in the story as well. Right at the start, almost like it’s some kind of superhero origin story, we hear how Ghost heard the gun go off that night he ran away from his home with his mom and “I felt like the loud shot made my legs move even faster.” That ties in beautifully with the starter pistol that goes off at the very very end of the book.

But maybe what I like the most about Jason Reynolds’ books is that he applies this keen sense of the complexity to his characters. I don’t think the man could write a straight one-dimensional villain to save his soul. Even his worst characters have these brief moments of humanity to them. In this case, Ghost’s dad is the worst character. You don’t get much worse than shooting at your wife and kid after all. Yet for all that, Ghost still can't help but love the guy and eats sunflower seeds in his memory. Each character in the book has layers that you can peel away as the story progresses. Even Ghost, ESPECIALLY Ghost, who makes you want to yell and him and cheer for him, sometimes at the same time.

There’s been a monumental push for increased diversity in children’s literature in the last few years. Diversity can mean any number of things and it often focuses on race. In a weird way, increasing the number of racially diverse books on a given publisher’s release calendar isn’t hard if the publisher is dedicated to the notion. Far more difficult is figuring out how you increase the economic diversity. Middle grade characters are almost always middle class. If they’re working class then they tend to be historical. Contemporary lower income kids in realistic novels are almost unheard of. For example, how many books for children have you ever read with kids living in shelters? I’ve read just one, and I’m a children’s librarian. So I watched what Reynolds did here with great interest. Ghost isn’t destitute or anything but his single mom makes ends meet by working long hours at a hospital. Middle class kids are remarkably good at ignoring their own privilege while kids like Ghost become almost invisible. In the book, Ghost’s decision to initially race Lu isn’t solely based on how Lu struts around the track, thinking he’s the bee’s knees. It’s also on his clothes. “…Lu, was decked out in the flyest gear. Fresh Nike running shoes, and a full-body skintight suit . . . He wore a headband and a gold chain around his neck, and a diamond glinted in each ear.” Later Ghost makes a decision regarding a particularly fancy pair of running shoes. That’s an economic decision as well. Those are the most obvious examples, but the book is full of little mentions, peppered throughout, of where Ghost’s class comes in to things. It’s nice to see an author who gets that. We are often affected by forces outside our control, forces we don’t even necessarily notice, particularly when we’re children. If young readers see it, they’ll be reading between the lines, just like Reynolds wants them to.

Right at the beginning of the book, when Coach is trying to convince Ghost’s mom that he should be running, Ghost realizes that he’s in a situation that’s played out in loads of sports films. He thinks, “If this went like the movies, I was either going to score the game-winning touchdown (which is impossible in track) or . . . die.” Sometimes you can gauge how good a book is by how self-aware its characters are. But sometimes you just read a book, put it down, and think, “Man. That was good. That was really good.” This is a book that actually made me tear up, and there aren’t a lot of middle grade books that do that. I was rooting for Ghost hard, right until the end. I was caring about a sport that I’d never otherwise think about in a million years. And I was admiring it from start to finish for all that it accomplishes in its scant 180 pages. This is the book you hand to the kids who want something real and good and honest. There are a lot of Ghosts out there in the world. Hopefully some of them will discover themselves here. Run, don’t walk, to pick this book up.

For ages 10 and up. ...more

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Sep 27, 2016 Shaun Hutchinson rated it it was amazing

I haven't been reading a lot of MG, but GHOST was awesome. The voice and the writing were just outstanding. GHOST was fantastic.

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Sep 17, 2016 Abby Johnson rated it it was amazing

Shelves: audio, diverse, 5th_grade, 6th_grade, contemporary, author-of-color

Jason Reynolds is a master of voice and dialog; the audiobook narration was fantastic. I felt like Ghost was actually sitting with me and telling me the story. I would highly recommend the audio for this title!

Castle Crenshaw (or Ghost, as he wants to be called) knows he can run fast. He knows because when his dad came at him and his mother on one violent night, running was the only way to get away. Life hasn't been super kind to Ghost - the kids at school make fun of him because he's poor and h ...more

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Jul 10, 2016 Monica Edinger rated it it was amazing

Reynold's voice here for Ghost is authentic, consistent, and raises this from an enjoyable beginning to a series to something more. Superb dialog, real situations, fabulous description (I can just see the shoes), and impressive characters. Having trained with a coach as part of an adult track club decades ago I can vouch for the authenticity of the workouts, say those "fart licks" (the real term is fartlek ---a Swedish word for exactly what Ghost and his team mates do). I look forward to further ...more

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Sep 21, 2016 Jenn Bishop rated it it was amazing

This book is everything! Seriously. A master class in voice and character. This former track star (okay, I wish, track participant) absolutely loved this story about what we're running from and toward, and the impact of belonging on a team. Ghost is one of my favorite MG narrators in recent memory. So endearing and lovable, in all his skepticism of his new coach and team. Love, love, LOVE!

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Oct 08, 2016 Joyce Yattoni rated it it was amazing

Shelves: coming-of-age-novels, novels-family-issues

This is a quick read. I am always interested in stories where children have to overcome insurmountable odds. Ghost is angry, lives in poverty and is embarrassed on a daily basis because of the kids who tease him about it. If that isn't enough to throw one over the edge, his dad tried to kill him. Thankfully an adult comes into his life who gives him a chance to be great. Great he is. Ghost is a phenom runner. I would recommend this book to anyone who struggles in life. My favorite quote from the ...more

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Sep 24, 2016 Beth rated it really liked it

Shelves: reviewed

It's Newbery reading time, so I picked this up - and color me impressed. By the book, that is. Which is to say: I closed this and did not think of a medal (though I won't be upset if this book wins one).

This reads like a middle grade staple. It skews younger in length, depth of story, and complexity. That's not a dig. This isn't very long, and the story takes place over a short period of time, meaning there's not a lot of ground covered. Nor are there complex structural or thematic approaches. ...more

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Sep 18, 2016 Alicia rated it really liked it

Shelves: male, series, sports, african-american, family

The first in a planned series, Reynolds hits middle grade with a fantastic storyline about a boy, Castle aka Ghost, who reminds me of Jack Gantos' characters (or his real life person) that gets in to a little trouble, has a little attitude, has a few problems at home, has a little bit of talent, has smarts and is generally an average kid. Ghost's mom makes ends meet working at a hospital cafeteria and his father is in prison for getting too drunk and firing shots at both Ghost and his mother yea ...more

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Sep 22, 2016 Michele Knott rated it it was amazing

Shelves: read-in-2016, middle-grade-upper

I really did not want this book to end. I cannot wait to get back into Castle's world.
Have to love a book that has a Michael Jordan reference!
I was constantly in awe of Reynolds' writing. At times it made me pause and reflect, other times I laughed at the frankness, other times it made me read parts out loud just to hear the voice.
Ready for book 2.

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Sep 23, 2016 Courtney rated it it was amazing

This book is perfect. I'm going to suggest it for books club kids at my school, for sure.

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Sep 14, 2016 Jillian Heise rated it really liked it

Shelves: pubday-7jul-8aug, middle-grade, favorite-authors-new-books, boy-appeal-recs, anxiously-awaiting, pub-simonschuster, wsra-chpbk-shortlist-2016, 2016-shortlist

I am beyond excited that Jason Reynolds now has middle grades books to share with our younger students, and even more so that he is starting a series! Ghost is a great start and introduction to these characters and this neighborhood.

This story held me captivated the whole way through. There is a lyrical nature to Jason's writing, and an authenticity to the characters, that makes me want to crawl into their world. I can see so many of my students in his characters lives, actions, thoughts, and c ...more

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Sep 19, 2016 Phil Jensen rated it really liked it

Shelves: diversity-2016

Go, Jason Reynolds, go!

Ghost gets my pick for the next Newbery (and CSK) medal. The characters are fun, the plot moves well, and the tone is expertly balanced. In fact, balance is the key to the book's appeal.

The track sections are exciting, and make me care more about the character's personal struggles. The personal struggles are handled with just enough emphasis to make them meaningful, but not so much that they become heavy-handed. The protagonist (Ghost) is flawed, but just relatable enough Go, Jason Reynolds, go!

Ghost gets my pick for the next Newbery (and CSK) medal. The characters are fun, the plot moves well, and the tone is expertly balanced. In fact, balance is the key to the book's appeal.

The track sections are exciting, and make me care more about the character's personal struggles. The personal struggles are handled with just enough emphasis to make them meaningful, but not so much that they become heavy-handed. The protagonist (Ghost) is flawed, but just relatable enough to make me care more about the running scenes.

Reynold's voice is getting a lot of praise, but that was the least effective part. Reynolds tries to craft the main character's voice by using AAE grammar, but he peppers it in so inconsistently that it seems forced rather than natural. Here's an example:

"Then I started trippin'. Like how when you at the swimming pool on the hottest day of summer, and you jump in, and it's cool, and you take one step too far, and suddenly you're in the deep end, and things ain't so cool no more." (p. 97)

When I've worked with students who wrote in AAE, they didn't alternate between "you at" and "you're"; it was "you at" all the way through. I wish Reynolds had gone all-in or not at all.

Some comments on the ending: (view spoiler)

Who should read this? Anyone under 15 who runs track, or coaches kids who run track. People who love a good mentor story. People who appreciate a simple tale told well. ...more

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Sep 09, 2016 Mrs. Krajewski rated it it was amazing

7th grader Castle Crenshaw can't seem to make it more than 17 straight hours without getting into some kind of trouble. He feels he can't help it, for he has so much anger built up inside of him. Three years before, his drunk father chased his mother and him out of their house. Now he's in jail, but Castle can't move past it. One thing that this awful incident did teach him was how to run. He's like a Ghost; lightning fast! When a coach for a league called the Defenders sees him run one day, Cas ...more

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Dec 01, 2016 Dan rated it it was amazing

Shelves: middle-grade, 2016-2017-book-club-selections

Outstanding

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Oct 20, 2016 Molly Dettmann rated it really liked it

Loved it! I can't wait for the rest of this series. I love Ghost. The teasing he deals with at school because of where he lives and how he dresses along with his upbringing with his abusive father (now in jail) leave Ghost going from black on the inside to red when it all becomes too much and then he lashes out. His file is full of these altercations and it seems like there will only be more. Then after he crashes try-outs for a track team he finds himself a part of that team. A team that is led ...more

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Oct 25, 2016 Chasia Lloyd rated it it was amazing

What a beautiful, moving story about ugly pasts, mistakes, records, and bright futures. Jason Reynolds's characters are vivid and vibrant, as always. I enjoyed the audiobook of this tremendously, Guy Lockard really brought our eponymous main character to life.

(Oops, forgot my TWs! Gun violence, drug abuse, and domestic abuse is covered here)

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Nov 25, 2016 Karen rated it it was amazing

Shelves: j, realistic-fiction

Favorite book I've read this year. Currently in the process of talking all my coworkers and every kid I know into reading it.

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Dec 08, 2016 Mary Ann rated it it was amazing

Shelves: audio, 6th, 4th, african-american, 5th

BOOM! Third time reading this and it still pulls me straight through each time.

from a 5th grader today: "I loved how you feel like you're Ghost. You get mad at someone, then forgive them. It feels like your emotions are building up until Ghost takes the shoes. Then they break when his coach brings him back to the store." definitely reaching kids in Berkeley!

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Oct 16, 2016 Leigh Anne rated it it was amazing

Shelves: realistic-fiction, middle-grade, heart-fiction, 2016-releases, school-year-2016-2017

I am thrilled to have read the beginning of something wonderful. So many students will be able to connect the characters in this book, and I can't wait to share Castle's story with my students.

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Oct 13, 2016 Angela rated it it was amazing

Shelves: in-the-middle

I. LOVE. THIS. BOOK. So much so that I need to order several more copies for our middle school library. Jason Reynolds is a fantastic young adult writer, and I'm so glad he's expanded into middle grade. The voices of his characters are always clear, believable, realistic. I hope this wins multiple awards. Honestly one of my favorite books of 2016. Highly recommended.

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Oct 14, 2016 Sara Cook rated it it was amazing

I loved the voice of Ghost. I smiled so many times recognizing students in his thoughts and actions. The complexity and layers made him real. Can't wait to share this with my kids who want something "good".

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Oct 12, 2016 Patricia rated it really liked it

Shelves: middle-school

Really enjoyed reading this book because the main character drew me into his story, the narrative voice was strong, the side characters were promising, and it ended on a cliffhanger, which made me hungry for more.

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Oct 01, 2016 Christina Jesse Hanson rated it it was amazing

"Show you that you can't run away from who you are, but what you can do is run toward who you want to be." Loved this quote from Jason Reynolds's newest book, Ghost. Castle Cranshaw, whose nickname is Ghost, is a runner. He first learned he was pretty fast the night his drunk father chased after he and his mom with a gun and actually shot it at them! Then, Ghost jumped in on an elite team's track practice, raced a kid while wearing jeans and a raggedy pair of shoes, and actually won! The coach r ...more

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Oct 31, 2016 Katie Lawrence rated it it was amazing

Shelves: children-s-books, potential-booktalks

This is just brilliantly done. What Reynolds is able to achieve in such a slim novel is truly extraordinary. Every character is well-crafted and believable. Ghost's experiences joining the track team perfectly capture the challenges of joining a team for the first time and it's exciting to have a children's novel about a sport other than soccer, football and basketball! Each of the newbie track members is dealing with their own challenging pasts and I hope that the series delves more into some o ...more

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Oct 09, 2016 Mary Lee rated it really liked it

Shelves: sports, 2016

Reynolds dropped enough hints about various characters and situations that I can see he'll have plenty of material for more books in this series!

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Sep 29, 2016 Serina rated it really liked it

Shelves: gs-2017

Masterful writing with an insightful look at a young lower class black boy running track. This book is so well written every break in grammar is purposeful and with intent. To put you into the situation and feel the character. So many of our young men are angry, especially young black ones. This book capsules why. The limits that are imposed upon them, the ones that ignore their plight and their desperate grab to create their own identity without guidance. One reviewer put out that diversity can ...more

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Oct 02, 2016 Cindy Dobrez rated it really liked it

Shelves: sports, fiction, 2016-reads

I've been wanting to booktalk this but my only copy has been in circulation. Must. Buy. More.

Full review at this Bookends Blog post

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Sep 25, 2016 Evan Taylor rated it it was amazing

Shelves: intermediate-grades, middle-school, multicultural, black-studies, ya-literature, teaching-characterization, teaching-plot, teaching-setting, teaching-point-of-view, wide-reading

Ghost is a great and refreshing novel written by Jason Reynolds. It is not often that you read texts about Black adolescent boys who run track, it is often a story about Black boys who play basketball. Reynolds has a craft in composing the plot in this story in that every chapter has you wondering what is going to happen next and how the character will respond when placed in various situations throughout the text. The message of not being able to run from yourself is perfectly woven into the nov ...more

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About Jason Reynolds

After earning a BA in English from The University of Maryland, College Park, he moved to Brooklyn, New York, where you can often find him walking the four blocks from the train to his apartment talking to himself. Well, not really talking to himself, but just repeating character names and plot lines he thought of on the train, over and over again, because he’s afraid he’ll forget it all before he ...more

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My Name Is Jason. Mine Too.: Our Story. Our Way.

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Quotes from Ghost

“You can't run away from who you are, but what you can do is run toward who you want to be.” — 2 likes

“Trouble is, you can't run away from yourself." Coach snatched the towel from his shoulder, folded into a perfect square, and set it in the space between us. "Unfortunately," he said, "ain't nobody that fast.” — 0 likes

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