Strong Like You

by T. L. Simpson

Overview

I haven’t cried one time since you disappeared. Not even at football practice when Paton Roper told the whole team you were probably dead. He said, “You know how sometimes a dog gets sick or bites somebody and you have to put it down?”

Somebody said, “Yep.”

“That’s probably what happened to Walker’s daddy.”

Walker Lauderdale hasn’t cried once since his daddy went missing. And even though everyone says he’s dead, Walker won’t give up hope. He knows his father is out there, somewhere, cutting a wild trail through the Ozarks like always. But when a relative threatens to kick Walker and his momma out of the family home, Walker realizes he has no choice but to look for his daddy—a search that leads him straight to a drug-addled and dangerous man named Lukas Fisher. While attempting to balance life as a normal fifteen-year-old boy and star player on the football team, Walker begins a desperate search across the hills of the Ozarks for the man who, for better or worse, taught him everything he knows about strength.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781635830941
Publisher:	North Star Editions
Publication date:	03/12/2024
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.70(d)
Lexile:	HL550L (what's this?)
Age Range:	12 - 18 Years

About the Author

T. L. Simpson is an award-winning journalist and editor of the Courier, a newspaper in his hometown of Russellville, Arkansas. Simpson spent nearly ten years covering high school and collegiate sports before taking over as editor. During that time, he was also the paper’s primary crime reporter. In a lot of ways, Strong Like You is the result of his experiences with covering both.

Editorial Reviews

The book explores masculinity, with Walker having a heartening insight near the end, when he realizes that with the right help, people can learn better than they were taught. . . . A grim but not entirely hopeless picture of life in the Ozarks, threaded with tragedies both immediate and endemic.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Strong Like You is an engaging novel in which a high school football star is forced to confront his ideas of manhood and forge better ones.” —Foreword Reviews

“A serious look at the legacy and impact of violence, especially around the toxic culture of football, along with a compassionate view of the struggle and frequent hopelessness of rural poverty, the novel makes for a compelling read with a mixed but ultimately hopeful conclusion. Recommended for libraries serving middle and high ­schoolers.” —School Library Journal

"This is a story of courage, family loyalty and friendship. It is a story that shows the reader the ultimate risk of one whose life is directed by violence." —Children's Literature

“Delve into the emotional rollercoaster of Walker’s world in this YA book that’s bound to keep you captivated page after page.” —Story Monsters Ink

From the Publisher

2023-12-16
Poverty and father worship lead an Arkansas teenager into dangerous choices and situations.

Ignoring plenty of signs that his missing father was not the best role model, Walker struggles to emulate his dad’s facade of toughness, both on and off the high school football field that he and Sawyer, his tight buddy and cousin, brutally patrol. Even as the prospect of being turned out of their house looms, and his new coach spends more and more time with Walker’s abandoned, penniless mom, the sophomore resolves to track his errant father down and fetch him back to set things right. But the trail quickly leads through an ugly tangle of drugs, drinking, and criminal acts to a shocking revelation, followed by gun violence. Walker’s emotional instability, the small-town setting’s poverty, and the descriptions of families in crisis all lend the tale a harsh cast overall. But at the urging of a patient school guidance counselor, Walker discovers the power of poetry to articulate his feelings and also finds in his coach a steadier father figure. The book explores masculinity, with Walker having a heartening insight near the end, when he realizes that with the right help, people can learn better than they were taught. (The lucky ones, anyway.) The coach draws comment for being Black; other major characters seem to be white.

A grim but not entirely hopeless picture of life in the Ozarks, threaded with tragedies both immediate and endemic. (reading guide) (Fiction. 13-17)

Kirkus Reviews