Crutcher, Chris. Whale talk.

Random House, Dell Laurel Leaf. 220p. c2001. 0-440-22938-3. $5.50. JS*

This ALA Top Ten Best Book for Young Adults was reviewed in KLIATT, March 2001: T.J. is a high school senior of mixed race--black, Japanese, and white--living in the almost all-white small town of Cutter in Washington. He's adopted, but his attitude is "Big deal; so was Superman," and he adores his adoptive parents. Neglect and abandonment by his birth mother has left him with a deep-seated rage and an urge to protect the weak of the world. T.J. is intellectually as well as athletically gifted, but he's always resisted joining any of the school's sports teams: "something in me recoils at being told what to do." When his English teacher asks him to start a swim team, however, T.J. sees the opportunity to help out some underdogs and to spit in the face of the town jocks. He puts together a team of misfits--one is mentally handicapped, one is obese, one is one-legged, and so on--and with the help of the teacher and a friendly man who sleeps in the local health club, the team goes on to triumph, in their own fashion, working hard and bonding as a group. Meanwhile, T.J. has made some powerful enemies, and matters come to a head when a mother and her abused multiracial daughter take refuge in T.J.'s house and an unexpected tragedy ensues.

Crutcher (author of Ironman, Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes and other YA novels) is one of the best YA authors around. Drawing on his experience as a family therapist and a child protection specialist, he understands the antiauthoritarian anger of teenage boys as well as the sports milieu he writes about so well. Here he tackles racism and prejudice as well as issues of violence, abuse, and forgiveness in a powerful story that will grab readers right away and have them rooting for the appealing and heroic T.J. Told with passion and humor, this is a real winner. Some profanity and violence.