The Boys of Columbia High in Track Athletics: Or, a Long Run That Won

This is early 20th century American youth fiction at its most alive. Three distance runners - Lanky Wallace, lanky and keen-eyed; Frank Allen, steady and determined; and Bones Shadduck, whose name alone suggests the gangly grace of a natural athlete - are in their final year at Columbia High. The book opens on a cross-country run through spring countryside, the boys jesting about their last year together, when a bull chases them into a neighboring pasture. It's a perfect encapsulation of the book: humor, friendship, and the particular anxiety of growing up and leaving behind the people who've defined your adolescence. What follows is both a sports story and a coming-of-age tale. The boys train for an impending track meet that has captured the school's excitement, but the real race is the one run against time itself - against the end of their school years, against the moment when they'll have to become men. Forbes, drawing on his own experience with school athletics, writes with the kind of authenticity that only comes from knowing exactly how hard those miles truly are. This is a book about what it means to run alongside your friends toward something you all want, and to discover what you're made of when the finish line finally appears.