Years ago Kara Thomas wrote a book about a nice little town where people were becoming scared because someone was killing the cheerleaders. Readers wrote to her asking if there was more to the story. Her answer was the very worthy sequel to The Cheerleaders: The Champions in which she not only presents readers with a superbly crafted chiller, but also shines the light on an issue people tend to sweep under the rug.
Eleven years earlier media coverage of the cheerleaders' deaths had made Sunnybrook infamous and left the residents yearning for a more positive defining narrative. Salvation has arrived through the high school football team, the Sunnybrook Tigers. They've captured the state championship two years in a row and seem on track to bring home a third victory. Needless to say, in the high school and the town they're big time heroes.
"It's near impossible to get tickets to games, and every business on Main Street has a PROUD SUPPORTER OF SUNNYBROOK FOOTBALL poster in their front window. Last year, a record number of football players signed with D1 colleges, and all anyone can talk about is where this year's seniors will end up."
Hadley, Thomas's narrator, is not a fan. For years she's had her heart set on attending Columbia and becoming a New York Times staff journalist. Starting her senior year she's determined to become editor of the school paper and up against tough competition. She wants to get a hard hitting piece on a controversial topic into the first issue...
...needless to say, a piece on the Tigers is not what she has in mind. But when no one else volunteers she takes the assignment. With the editorship in mind she's going to slay the piece even that it's about the last thing she wants to write.
Staring at her empty document, she's distracted by an email by SportsFan@gmail.com: Tell Kirk you can't do the article. Make her give it to someone else." It's only the first ominous message she receives from this anonymous source implying that the guys on the team may be up to something more sinister than trophy pursuit...
...maybe aided and abeted by adults at the school and in the town who have vested interests in seeing that nothing jeopardize the miracle comeback narrative...
...and maybe somehow linked to the tragedy people are so eager to leave in the past.
Needless to say a lot of people don't want Hadley uncovering secrets even with one player dead, another in a coma, and the team starting to fall apart.
In our society too often "promising" male athletes are able to get away with just about everything. It's especially egregious in cases of sexual assault when their misdeeds are covered up by not only their teammates, but the adults in charge. Including this reality in a highly engaging YA novel could raise awareness of this issue.
On a purrrsonal note, it looks like Eugene and I are going to camp tomorrow. It's a good thing I got more library books! Hopefully it won't 🌧 too much. Hopefully we'll find yard sales with awesome merch. Tomorrow I'll be offline and I'll post Sunday.
A great big shout out goes out to Eugene.
Jules Hathaway
Sent from my U.S.Cellular© Smartphone
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