african american high school runner

[Anna]

This made me think of 'The Runner' by Cynthia Voight (http://www.amazon.com/Runner-Tillerma...) but the main character in that book is white. And the action doesn't take place in a prep school.

Good luck finding the book!

[Debbie]

I know this has been awhile and I don't know if you found the book you were looking for. But it kind of reminds me of a book by Dick Gregory titled "Nigger, an autobiography." I hope this helps.

[Krista the Krazy Kataloguer]

Is it Running Girl: the Diary of Ebonee Rose by Sharon Bell Mathis?

[Brenda]

Could this be YA fiction? Is it Diary of a Teenage Stud by Jonas Black? There are three volumes, the third (I think) called Run Jonah, Run. The first one
is Girls, Girls, Girls. If I remember correctly, many of the characters had the last name Black. Quirky, Douglas Adams-ish, fiction.

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

Is it A Hope in the Unseen by Ron Suskind?



It is 1993, and Cedric Jennings is a bright and ferociously determined honor student at Ballou, a high school in one of Washington D.C.’s most dangerous neighborhoods, where the dropout rate is well into double digits and just 80 students out of more than 1,350 boast an average of B or better. At Ballou, Cedric has almost no friends. He eats lunch in a classroom most days, plowing through the extra work he has asked for, knowing that he’s really competing with kids from other, harder schools. Cedric Jennings’s driving ambition–which is fully supported by his forceful mother–is to attend a top-flight college.

In September 1995, after years of near superhuman dedication, he realizes that ambition when he begins as a freshman at Brown University.

[Lisa]

Bailey wrote: "I THINK this might be it. I remember a scene where he was running and beating the white kids on his team, so maybe not. But I'm going with this -- I will have to re-read it!

Thanks so much."

Bailey, Please return and let us know. We'll shelve it if it's the right book. Or, should we do that now?

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

The book I linked to is nonfiction.

[Kate]

I know you said it was a male, but your description otherwise reminds me a lot of A White Romance by Virginia Hamilton. The protagonist is a black track runner, and her school starts bussing in white kids and she gets involved with a white girl who is dating a drug addict, and dates a white guy herself.

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

Bailey, did you figure out what book it was?

[Bailey]

No, but I'm fine with taking the review down. I tried deleting it -- please let me know if I need to do anything else.

[Kate]

oh, please don't. it might turn up, and I'm curious what it was!

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

Disappointing, OP is gone. I was sure this must be A Hope in the Unseen.