The Basketball Player

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian studies at
Concordia University, and the author of Kurlek, Margaret Laurence: The
Long Journey Home, and As Though Life Mattered: Leo Kennedy’s Story.

Roch Carrier’s earlier classics—The Hockey Sweater and The Longest
Home Run—have earned him a permanent place in the hall of fame for
children’s literature. The Basketball Player is a bittersweet comic
tale in the same vein.

A young boy settling into a Catholic residential school for the first
time needs all his courage to keep from crying. He is sustained by the
hope of finding “all the books you must read if you want to travel far
along the road of life.” After an old priest conscripts the reluctant
recruit to the basketball team, the boy attempts to run away, only to
learn that running from challenges is not the right way on the road of
life.

The boy’s failures and triumphs are laced with dry wit. When he
finally scores for the team, the ball “dropped into the net, silently,
like a foot into a sock.”

Sheldon Cohen’s illustrations sparkle with energy and fun. Highly
recommended.