Great book! Patina (Patty) Jones is a runner by default. Her mother cannot run because she has no legs, so she lives with her aunt and uncle. This year she transferred to a new school where she has no friends. And to top all that, her first track meet with her new team got her placed in second. She is mad. She is sad. She is scared. When her aunt gets into a car accident on the way to drop Patty’s younger sister off for a field trip, she realizes how much she appreciates her, and is very thankful that Maddy wasn’t hurt. This is a sweet tale of family and breaking through barriers. Enjoy!
Interest Level | Reading Level | Reading A-Z | ATOS | Word Count |
---|---|---|---|---|
Grades 4 - 8 | Grade 5 | n/a | 4.7 | 48957 |
Ghost. Lu. Patina. Sunny. Four kids from wildly different backgrounds with personalities that are explosive when they clash. But they are also four kids chosen for an elite middle school track team—a team that could qualify them for the Junior Olympics if they can get their acts together. They all have a lot to lose, but they also have a lot to prove, not only to each other, but to themselves.
Patina, or Patty, runs like a flash. She runs for many reasons—to escape the taunts from the kids at the fancy-schmancy new school she’s been sent to since she and her little sister had to stop living with their mom. She runs from the reason WHY she’s not able to live with her “real” mom any more: her mom has The Sugar, and Patty is terrified that the disease that took her mom’s legs will one day take her away forever. So Patty’s also running for her mom, who can’t. But can you ever really run away from any of this? As the stress builds up, it’s building up a pretty bad attitude as well. Coach won’t tolerate bad attitude. No day, no way. And now he wants Patty to run relay…where you have to depend on other people? How’s she going to do THAT?
Book Reviews (4)
In the second book in the Track series you switch perspectives to a girl named Patina. She has troubles at school and at home, but running track is helping her with it all.
Why do all these kids have tragic backstories?
They don’t. There are other kids on the track team, but Jason Reynolds chose to focus on the ones with more interesting backstories!
I decided to read this book because my librainan recoomened the book Ghost to me. I read ghost and loved it, so then I decied to read the book Patina. At first I never knew about Patina and kept skipping over it. Thats when my school libraian told me what it was. As soon as I got it, I feel in love with it. I could not peel my eyes away. When I finished it, I was a bit dissapointed because it ended with a cliffhanger. So I guess I just need to read the next book, Sunny. I defeinetly reccomend this book to everyone. Its a book for all ages and everyone will love it.
yep- I read Sunny- Great- it shares a lot of things i never knew abt him