Losers and Winners

Matt McKendrick #3

by Frances A. Miller

Vicious rumors and violence brew as seventeen-year-old Matt McKendrick, once accused and exonerated of the murder of his sister, competes against Duke Grieve, a tough black athlete from an underprivileged background, for the Runner of the Year Award

Genres: Young Adult, Fiction

192 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published June 12, 1986

Reviews

[Elizabeth R · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one didn’t hold up QUITE so well. Racial tensions - and it’s the black kids attacking the white ones over mistaken beliefs that all white kids are rich and can buy whatever they want or need. Teenagers having no emotional reaction to their dad remarrying, other than hoping the new stepmom will help manage housekeepers, a mere two years after the sudden death of their mother. Those teenagers were oddly adult, and I didn’t buy. There’s a lot of physical violence as an accepted method for working out disputes, and from cops as an expectation to subjects. Perhaps the most dates of the three books. Characters still lovely, writing still lively and realistic.

[Karlie Lucas · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book gets better every time I read it.