Neha Patil (Editor)

The Sledding Hill

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Publisher
  
Greenwillow Press

Media type
  
Print (Paperback)

ISBN
  
0-06-050243-6

Author
  
Chris Crutcher

Country
  
United States of America

3.7/5
Goodreads

Language
  
English

Publication date
  
2005

Pages
  
230 pp

Originally published
  
2005

Genre
  
Young adult fiction

Preceded by
  
Whale Talk

The Sledding Hill t1gstaticcomimagesqtbnANd9GcTuLaAdZZPvYp7iby

Nominations
  
Locus Award for Best Young-Adult Book

Similar
  
Chris Crutcher books, Young adult fiction books

Chris crutcher s the sledding hill virtual read out 2012


The Sledding Hill is a 2005 post-modern metafictional novel by young adult writer Chris Crutcher. By having the novel narrated by a super-omniscient dead boy and placing himself into the novel, Crutcher has written a work that encompasses two literary fads.

Contents

The sledding hill


Plot summary

The novel is narrated by Billy Bartholomew, the best friend of the protagonist, Eddie Proffit, as Eddie struggles not only with Billy’s recent death, but that of his father as well. An intelligent boy who is seemingly afflicted with ADHD, Eddie cannot stop talking until he is confronted with these two sudden deaths. The only way he can cope with these tragedies, then, is to stop talking entirely.

Eddie begins talking again when he testifies in front of the Red Brick Church announcing he will not only not join the church, but will also speak in favor of Warren Peece at the school board meeting. A misinterpretation of his testimony compels the church members to have Eddie placed into a mental health facility supposedly because Eddie thinks he is Jesus Christ. Crutcher places himself in the novel’s climax as a speaker at the board meeting on the removal of the book. He was also an amazing artist shown in this book

Major themes

A frequent target of censors, Crutcher touches on many of his familiar themes in this work: literary and intellectual freedom along with freedom of speech, religious prejudice, mental disabilities and homosexuality. Oddly, though many of his previous works are challenged on the basis of language being inappropriate for the intended audience, there is no objectionable language in The Sledding Hill (besides a brief mention of huevos, male testicles in Spanish). Crutcher has said that he did this intentionally so that censors would not have bad language as a reason to hide behind their disagreement with the book's content, so the only reason it could be banned would be for its subject matter.

References

The Sledding Hill Wikipedia