The Sledding Hill by Chris Crutcher

Crutcher's books are all about the ordinary (not popular) kids that populate high schools and middle schools. Thats most of the kids isn't it? Eddie has lost both his father, who he is close to, and his best friend in the same year. Since he does not have anything to say to all the sympathic well wishers or anyone else, he just doesn't talk. What changes this? Two things, his friend Billy begins visiting him from the dead and an assigned reading book really becomes important to him. Those things are important enough that he chooses to share with Billy's father. They have many private discussions in the school's janitor's closet. A third catastrophe hits when his beloved book is banned from school by a group of fundamentalists. It looks like it will be banished permanently if he doesn't do something. With the help of Billy, Billy's father, Chris Crutcher who is the author of the banned book, and a couple of kids who think like he does, he sets out to stop the ban.

JDW9/9/05