Snap: A Legend of the Lone Mountain

At Fernhall School, where the lawns are manicured and the rules are absolute, Snap Hales is the boy everyone talks about: brilliant with a cricket bat, hopeless at keeping his temper, and perpetually one mischief away from expulsion. When the school cricket team faces Loamshire in a match that matters more than any of them realize, the captain Frank Winthrop must persuade the headmaster to release Snap from detention despite his latest transgression. Snap arrives at the pitch just in time, delivers a performance that borders on legendary, and leads his team to victory but the triumph is fleeting. Beneath the glory of sport lies the complicated terrain of adolescent friendships, rivalries that cut deeper than scored runs, and the perpetual tension between the boy Snap still is and the man he's becoming. Written in 1890, this is Victorian school fiction at its most energetic: a world of damp morning Chapel, whispered conspiracies in the dormitory, and the particular anguish of wanting to belong while refusing to behave. For readers who loved Tom Brown's Schooldays and appreciate stories of imperfect boys who are more interesting than the perfect ones.