On Track by Kathryn Apel

I have been looking forward to reading On Track.  We purchased this book last year for our library but it some how disappeared.  Last week it 'turned up' hidden under a shelf.

Why have I been looking forward to this book?
1.  It is a verse novel and I adore verse novels
2.  It is about sport and I am always looking for books which might appeal to my senior boys
3.  I read one glowing review and one less complimentary review and so I was curious - how could one book elicit such divergent views?

I read this book over two sessions.  I read the first 80 pages waiting for a take away order of fish and chips and the remaining 215 pages today.  I know this is an odd thing to say but if you read this book please stay with it until page 175 because that is when the action really kicks in.

Now don't panic.  You will reach page 175 before you realise because this is a verse novel and so each page can be read very quickly.

Shaun and Toby are brothers but they don't really know each other at all.  Each brother is wrapped up in his own worries and feelings of inadequacy.  Toby is doing well academically - A grades for everything and yet he feels like a failure in his parents eyes.  Shaun is not doing well at anything. School is hard, physical activities are hard and he knows he can never be as 'good' as his brother.

In these two extracts you can hear the voice of Toby.

Shaun 
is only
11 months.
9 days, 
4 hours and
22 minutes
older than me,
but that is enough
to make him
oldest.

Toby : Not good enough
Sometimes it feels
like my body doesn't belong 
to me, like I tell it to do stuff
and it doesn't.  My feet stumble along
and trip over each other, my hands fumble
and drop, and it's almost like I'm wrapped in
invisible bubble wrap ...

This verse novel did have some emotional highs and lows as you would expect from this genre but not quite enough to satisfy me.  I also had some difficulty distinguishing the two boys 'voices' at first. Perhaps I was not concentrating.  This did pass after a while and I found there was a rhythm to the writing.  I think my early problem might relate to the way the voices do not always alternate. Later in the book I enjoyed this structure.  I am looking forward to putting this book into the hands of several of our Grade 6 boys - we read some verse novels last year and many of them enjoyed these books both for the way you can read them quite quickly and for their powerful storytelling.

You might like to think about the title with your students.  The boys compete in an athletics carnival on the track.  Toby has some major hurdles to over come and so he must stay 'on track' with his training.  Shaun wants to win the discus competition and so he works hard to also stay 'on track'.

After reading On Track I recommend look for Motormouth and Tom Jones saves the world by Steven Herrick.

Here are a set of very detailed teaching notes.

Perhaps you would enjoy reading a range of reviews of On Track book:

Kids Book Review
Aussie Reviews
Children's Books Daily
Reading Time

Heartbeat by Sharon Creech

As usual I love to begin my holidays with a good book and for the start of this Summer break, I picked out a book I read quite a long time ago. It is one I often recommend to my senior Primary students.

Heartbeat is a verse novel and as I have mentioned in other review of verse novels this genre always seem to pack a very emotional punch.

Annie and her friend Max love to run. For Annie running is a release, a joy, fun! For Max running is a competition, an obsession, the way to forge a new destiny. Being twelve and thirteen their lives are changing. Annie will soon have a new sibling. Heartbeat is a chronicle of the development of the new baby from just a few cells “little, tiny cells multiplying every second” through to delivery. At the other end of life, Annie and her parents share their home with her elderly grandfather. He was also once a runner, but his life is slowly drawing to a close and his memory is failing. “He says he is falling to bits little pieces stop working each day and his brain is made of scrambled eggs.” These two aspects of Annie’s life lead her to think very deeply about life and relationships.

“Max also reminds me
that when I was ten
I suddenly jumped of a swing
and said
‘Why are we here?’
…
Am I supposed to do something
Important?
It doesn’t seem enough
to merely take up space
on this planet
in this country
in this state
in this town
in this family
…
I do not yet know
what I should be
or
do.”

The other truly special moments in this book come as Annie works on an art project. We have an art room in our Primary school, and I would love to think there might be children who treasure this room the way Annie does: “Twice a week at school we have art class with Miss Freely in a room I’d like to live in.” The art project is to draw apples for 100 days. This simple idea provides a beautiful metaphor for the evolution of life Creech explores though this book.

If you enjoyed Don’t breathe a word by Marianne Musgrove and all the books by Sherryl Clarke and Sally Murphy (Pearl verses the world), Heartbeat is even better. Sharon Creech is a master writer of the verse novel. You might also enjoy an old but very special picture book we have in our library called A Rabbit named Harris by Nan Hunt. Take a look at my reviews of Love that Dog and Hate that Cat. (Sharon Creech made a comment about this review and it is one of my proudest blog moments!).

I often muse about the way a book reaches me. Earlier this year a senior student lost our copy of Heartbeat. After quite a long period we purchased a new copy and then about four weeks ago the old copy was unearthed in a different classroom. This original copy is in fairly poor shape so we have withdrawn it from our collection and thus I bought it home to read. My holidays are off to a fabulous start with the reading of this sensitive and affirming story. You can read some notes here by Sharon Creech and an extensive set of questions for teachers who might like to use this book with a class.

Post update 30th June, 2024. I just read this book for the third time and loved it all over again.  I have added different cover designs to the top of this post and my five star rating.