Middle-Grade Review: Coach (Track #5) (Jason Reynolds)

We meet Otis Brody, the coach from Reynolds’ Ghost, when he is a teen growing up in Glass Manor in about 1988. His mother works in telemarketing, and his father is frequently traveling for business, and isn’t around as much to take Otis to the barbershop to keep his haircut fresh. When a boy at school, Quentin, gives him a hard time about this, Otis attempts to cut his own hair with a razor and accidentally cuts off one of his eyebrows. His mother steps in and decides that the only solution is to shave his entire head and claim it is to improve his aerodynamics for running. Otis is sure he can be as good as his idol, Carl Lewis, so when Dudley Anderson, who scouted Lewis, is due to visit his track team, he’s sure he can get a spot in the Junior Olympics. When his father returns from his most recent trip, he brings a pair of the new Air Jordans 3. Otis is very excited, since everyone is talking about the shoes, although his mother is apprehensive about them, since his father does not have the box. She is also concerned that kids have been robbed of their shoes, and insists on keeping them locked up much of the time in the family safe with other valuables like his video game console. Otis’ best friend, Goose, is involved in the Clippers gang, and Otis’ mother is wary of the street life around their apartment. Otis makes some progress in track, but is derailed when his father takes his shoes in the middle of the night. This leads to some revelations about what his father has really been up to, and gives us some backstory to an important character in the Track series.