Pinned (228Pages)

Sharon Flake, author of The Skin I'm In and other wonderful reads (Including one of my favorites- Bang!), has written a text about a young, high school girl who is an outstanding wrestler, but unable to read. She falls in love with with a brilliant high school boy who was born without legs and as a result is wheel chair bound. Told in alternating chapters, Autumn and Adonis, relate the story of Autumn's success in wrestling and failure in reading. Adonis has rather rigid beliefs in what is right and what is wrong, but he is the manager of the wrestling team, and a volunteer in the school library. Autumn's difficulty in learning to read was made clearer when her parents acknowledged that they too could not read. But they knew how important reading is and how it effects every subject. As a result, they tell Autumn she must be off the wrestling team until she brings up her grades. They try to make her read with them every night. In spite of a major temper tantrum, Autumn is off the team. Now it is up to her to do something about her education. One thing to notice in this read is that Autumn's dialogue is spoken in the way many African Americans speak. This could be helpful for African American students. To see two black students and realize that one speaks flawlessly while the other speaks in what often sounds like slang, might be worth some discussion with kids.