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| Perma-Bound Edition ©2007 | -- |
| Paperback ©2007 | -- |
Football. Fiction.
Fathers and sons. Fiction.
High schools. Fiction.
Schools. Fiction.
Steroids. Fiction.
Family life. Washington (State). Fiction.
Washington (State). Fiction.
Having grown up in the shadow of his father's failed NFL career, high-school football player Mick Johnson is determined not to make the same mistakes. But when he's tackled just short of the goal in a pivotal game, he decides that vitamin supplements aren't enough and begins purchasing "gym candy," or steroids, from the trainer at his local gym. His performance starts breaking records and his father couldn't be more proud, but along with gains in muscle, he suffers "'roid rage," depression, and unsightly acne. When his secret finally comes out, he attempts suicide. Even after therapy, Mick is left wondering if he'll continue to be tempted by steroids. Deuker skillfully complements a sobering message with plenty of exciting on-field action and locker-room drama, while depicting Mick's emotional struggles with loneliness and insecurity as sensitively and realistically as his physical ones. Pair this solid addition to the sports fiction shelf with John Coy's Crackback (2005).
Voice of Youth AdvocatesMick wants to blame his father for making football his life's focus, but it is only partly true. His dad has carefully planned his football career, even starting Mick in school a year late to give him a size advantage by high school as a running back. On the other hand, his mother does not even want to see the potentially violent and injurious football games. His good friends Drew and DeShawn want to excel at football also, but they were never driven like Mick. Mick was brought down just one foot from the goal line the previous season by an immense Foothill linebacker, so he works all summer to increase his size. He trains with weights to exhaustion and uses steroids to become a star, but in the end, he must accept that he does it for himself and that winning almost costs him his life and all that matters. He willingly puts up with the depression and rages that ensue. He gives up on a budding romance and on hanging out with his friends. This well-written work highlights the "bigger, stronger, faster" competitive culture to which Americans have been conditioned to subscribe in sports. Steroids have become commonplace, but this persuasive story is able to disseminate the facts and heartbreak of their use by showing what can happen to a driven, everyday guy. This story will make a great addition to both school and public libraries and an eye-opening recommendation to all budding athletes.-Ava Ehde.
School Library JournalGr 7-10-Deuker tackles high school steroid use with his usual spot-on characterizations, exciting game-play descriptions, and an entirely credible depiction of one athlete's decision to use illegal substances to become bigger, faster, and stronger. Mick's earliest memories are of playing football with his dad, once a high school/college star running back and third-round draft pick of the San Diego Chargers, but now a radio sidekick in Seattle. Learning the truth about his father's career-that he was a football bad boy who squandered his talent-motivates Mick to work harder than ever. He earns his place on the varsity as an incoming freshman but comes up short on the big play of the final game that season. Initially rejecting the offer of steroids from his personal trainer at the gym, Mick is eventually convinced to give it a shot, injecting XTR during the next season and becoming a touchdown-scoring machine. Deuker realistically portrays the paranoia, acne, and emotional roller-coaster that are side effects of steroid use and the constant pressure to win that drives some athletes to succumb to illegal drugs. The climax involving gun violence and the importance of friends who can back you up eerily parallels Robert Lipsyte's Raiders Night (HarperCollins, 2006), although minus that book's sexualized swagger; this one is pitched for a younger audience. The disturbing and powerful denouement will leave readers uncertain whether, even after having undergone residential substance-abuse counseling, Mick will be able to stay off the "juice."-Joel Shoemaker, Southeast Junior High School, Iowa City, IA Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus ReviewsMick Johnson wants to be a star running back. He's good, but not good enough. The trouble is the red zone, the 20 yards in front of the end zone, and he's not quite powerful enough to crunch his way in against big defenders. He begins working harder, lifting weights and taking protein powders, but progress is slow. He starts going to Popeye's gym, where his trainer introduces him to steroids—gym candy—and then to "stacks," mixes of pills and injections. This cautionary tale, told in first person, is a methodical working out of the psychology of the high-school athlete willing to do anything to gain an edge. It's a moral tale, too, as Mick realizes what he has lost for his gains. After almost killing a friend and himself and going through rehab, he understands the almost-irresistible lure of the drugs that promise to make him more than he could be on his own. A superb sports novel with no easy resolutions and a good match with Robert Lipsyte's Raiders Night (2006). (Fiction. 12-15)
ILA Young Adults' Award
ALA Booklist (Sat Sep 01 00:00:00 CDT 2007)
Voice of Youth Advocates
School Library Journal
Wilson's Junior High Catalog
Kirkus Reviews
Wilson's High School Catalog
I took off running toward the end zone. Our backyard is narrow, his arms are long, and even on his knees he could move fast enough to catch a four-year-old. Time after time I ran, trying to get by him. But he never let me have anything for nothing, not even then. Over and over he'd stretch out one of his arms and tackle me. Sometimes the tears would well up. "There's no crying in football," he'd say, which I guess is a joke from some Tom Hanks movie, and he'd send me back to try again.
And then I did it. I zigged when he was expecting a zag, and I was by him. I crossed the chalk line at the end of the yard, my heart pounding. I remember squealing for joy as I turned around. He was lying on the ground, arms reaching toward me, a huge smile on his face. "Touchdown Mick Johnson!" he yelled. "Your first touchdown!"
All those years, I believed that every kid in the neighborhood was jealous of me. And why not? I'd spent time at the houses of the boys on my block --Philip and Cory and Marcus. I'd seen their dads sprawled out on the sofa. Mostly they'd ignore me, but if they asked me something, it was always about school. I'd answer, and then they'd go back to their newspaper. These fathers drove delivery trucks or taught high school or worked in office buildings in downtown Seattle. They wore glasses, had close-cropped hair, and either had bellies or were starting to get them. Everything about them seemed puny.
My dad was bigger and stronger than any of them. His voice was deeper, his smile wider, his laugh louder. Like me, he has red hair, only his was long and reached his shoulders. He wore muscle T-shirts that showed his tattoos--on one shoulder a dragon, on the other a snake. He kept a keg of beer in the den, and whenever he filled his beer stein, he'd let me sip the foam off the top. The way he looked, the way he acted--those things alone put him a million miles above every other kid's father. But there was one last thing that absolutely sealed the deal--my dad was a star.
Our den proved it. It was down in the basement, across from my mom's laundry room, and it was filled with scrapbooks and plaques and medals. Two walls were covered with framed newspaper articles. It was the headlines of those articles that told his story. I used to go downstairs into the den, pick up one of the game balls that he kept in a metal bin in the corner, and walk around and read them, feeling the laces and the leather of the football as I read. Mike Johnson Sets High School Yardage Record . . . Mike Johnson Leads Huskies over USC . . . Mike Johnson Named to All-Pac Ten First Team . . . Mike Johnson Selected in Third Round.
Sometimes my dad would come in while I was staring at the walls. He'd tell me about a touchdown run he'd made in a rainstorm against Cal or the swing pass in the Sun Bowl that he'd broken for sixty-five yards. When he finished with one of his stories, he'd point to the two bare walls. "Those are yours, Mick," he'd say. "You're going to fill them up with your own headlines."
My mom had been a top gymnast at the University of Washington the same years my dad was on the football team. She runs around Green Lake every morning, and she used to do the Seattle-to-Portland bicycle race, so she knows all about competition. But every time she heard my dad talk about me making the headlines, she'd put her hands on my shoulders and look at me with her dark eyes. "You don't have to fill any walls with anything," she'd say. "You just be you." Then she'd point her finger at my dad. "And you stop with all that 'bare walls' stuff."
My dad would laugh. "A little pressure is good for a boy. Keeps him on his toes."
Excerpted from Gym Candy by Carl Deuker
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
From award-winning novelist Carl Deuker comes a gritty, heart-wrenching story about high school football, self-acceptance, and the pressures that come with being the best at any cost.
“Look, Mick,” he said, “you’re going to find out from somebody in the gym, so you might as well find out from me. Those supplements you’re taking? They might get you a little bigger, but just a little. If you’re after serious results, there’s other stuff that produces better results much faster, stuff that a lot of guys in the gym use.” “What other stuff?” “You know what I’m talking about—gym candy.”
Running back Mick Johnson has dreams: dreams of cutting back, finding the hole, breaking into the open, and running free with nothing but green grass ahead. He has dreams of winning and of being the best. But football is a cruel sport. It requires power, grace, speed, quickness, and knowledge of the game. It takes luck, too. One crazy bounce can turn a likely victory into sudden defeat. What elite athlete wouldn’t look for an edge? A way to make him bigger, stronger, faster?
This novel explores the dark corners of the heart of a young football player as he struggles for success under the always glaring—and often unforgiving—stadium lights.