Chris Crutcher, therapist and author of seven prize-winning young adult books, here gives his many fans another wise and compassionate story full of the intensity of athletic competition and hair-raising incidents of child abuse. Meanwhile, T.J.'s father, who has taken in a battered little girl to ease his lifelong guilt over his role in the accidental death of a baby, tangles with another bully-her stepfather-and his growing murderous rage. The really important thing, though, turns out to be the long bus rides to meets, a safe place to share the hurts that have made them who they are. After weeks of dedicated practice at the All Night Fitness pool, the seven mermen get good enough not to embarrass themselves in competition. He assembles a swim team (in a school with no pool) made up of the most outrageous outsiders and misfits he can find and extracts a conditional promise of those sacred letter jackets from the coach. So when big-deal football star Mike Barbour bullies brain-damaged Chris Coughlin for wearing his dead brother's letter jacket, T.J. Injustice, however, still fills him with fury. by Chris Crutcher Start Free Trial Whale Talk Questions and Answers What are songs that go along with Whale Talk In 'Whatle Talk', what does Mr.Jones mean when he tells T.J he should. With the help of a good therapist and his decent, loving, ex-hippie adoptive parents, he's not only fairly even-keeled, he has turned out to be smart and funny.

As a child he was full of rage, but now as a senior in high school he's pretty much overcome all that. Jones is black, Japanese, and white his given name is The Tao (honest!), and he's the son of a woman who abandoned him when she got heavily into crack and crank.

Whale Talk by Chris Crutcher