Play Book Tag discussion

This book is quite good so I've rounded it up to 4 stars even though it's more like 3.7 stars for me; I can see why it won at least one award. It's not completely believable, of course, but the Spinelli wrote about a bit of that.

This book addresses a number of things, including racism, and shows both good and not-so-good people on both sides if the literal racial divide in this town. Magee, an orphan, runs away from his aunt and uncle's home because they refuse to get a divorce, don't talk to each other and are at the point where they have two different refrigerators, etc. He's an amazing runner who, as the blurb states "changes the lives of a racially divided town with his amazing and legendary feats," but to be frank, there are others, both black and white, who help Magee and change his life as well, and (view spoiler)[it's black saviours who save him from a life of homelessness (hide spoiler)]. It's well-suited to children. I would say that there are saviours in this book who are black, and that includes the Beale family, so am not clear on the few people who call this white saviour because the racial problems between the two sides of town are not fixed and why are some saying that kids don't see colour? It's very clear in this book that they do. As for Magee's talent Spinelli was not doing that to be realistic which he wrote about in the edition I read. Why do children's books all need to be completely realistic? I'd say that Amanda Beale is also the hero in this book.

As far as I can see, Spinelli was drawing attention to the problems of ongoing racism to a young audience who might not all have known how bad things still were in the States when this was written (and I'm not saying whether or not things have improved because that's NOT my story to tell!)