Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    The Great Teeth of the Young Lions
    Unavailable
    The Great Teeth of the Young Lions
    Unavailable
    The Great Teeth of the Young Lions
    Ebook400 pages6 hours

    The Great Teeth of the Young Lions

    By Mark Squires

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Someone is vandalizing Mr. Batty’s mailbox at night. It’s probably one of his students, but which one? Batty, who hates his students as much as they hate his harsh methods in class, is the high-school English teacher in the small town of Lizard Bump, Arizona. Once a caring teacher, Batty is now burned-out and haunted by a student suicide years before. When the principal insists that Batty coach the junior-high track team, Batty, who knows nothing about sports, is further annoyed by a fist-swinging, mentally-handicapped boy named Cage who joins the motley track team and provokes ongoing trouble at the practices and track meets. But despite Cage’s disruptions and Batty’s poor coaching, the team has natural talent and proves competitive.

    As Batty’s wife and children begin to question his pessimism, Batty sees the dull-witted Cage get abused at school by Luke, the Hispanic high-school jock. Batty blackmails Luke into acting as Cage’s personal coach. And suddenly winning the championship track meet seems possible—in fact, winning becomes the only way for Batty to justify his otherwise failed life. But a twist of fate places clumsy Cage as a key athlete to win the championship. That night a tragedy threatens Batty’s rebirth.

    The Great Teeth of the Young Lions explores the peculiar world of defiant teenagers, teacher burnout, and dignity for the mentally disabled. The story appeals to educators, young adult readers, and all who have had the public-school experience, conveying the true feelings that many educators suppress and deny in the face of rising public expectations.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMark Squires
    Release dateJul 5, 2011
    ISBN9781452421407
    Unavailable
    The Great Teeth of the Young Lions
    Author

    Mark Squires

    Mark Squires worked in the construction trades in the Salt River Valley of Southern Arizona for twenty years. In 1995 he fell from a wall, shattering both his heels, which ended his construction career. He then became a teacher in 1996 at Pima High School in Pima, Arizona, in the Gila River Valley, where he taught high-school English for fourteen years. In 2010 he began an eight-year stint as the principal of Pima Junior High School. Then, in 2018, he returned to the classroom and taught English at Pima Junior High School. Currently, he is the director of a small alternative school in the Pima Unified School District. Mr. Squires has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Secondary Education with majors in History and English. He also has a Masters of Education in Educational Leadership. He has been married to Nanette Haws Squires since 1979. Together, they have three living children, three in-law children, and thirteen grandchildren. Their beloved youngest daughter passed away from cancer in 2020.For much of his early life, Squires lived in East Mesa, Arizona, a few miles from the Superstition Mountains where he often hiked and imagined what Jacob Waltz may have experienced in that rugged terrain in the late 1800s. That is where the legend of a rich gold mine began. Squires read many of the documentary-style books about the fabled Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine, and then used three actual newspaper articles of the day for the basis of a story, which eventually became the novel The Dutchman (1994).Before acquiring a permanent teaching job, Squires was a substitute teacher for several school districts, and he met a variety of teachers, some of whom were sad and miserable. This spawned the idea of a teacher who hates students, and who is forced by his principal to coach a junior-high track team, which has an unruly mentally-disabled boy as one of its athletes. The result is The Great Teeth of the Young Lions (2011), a novel set in the imaginary town of Lizard Bump in the Gila River Valley. The story confronts two ideas: the challenges of surviving as a teacher and the demands of loving students to be a successful teacher.The acquisition of Squires' masters degree in educational leadership brought many thoughts about the characteristics of a good leader, not just in education, but in all leadership positions. As a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Squires explored the idea that Jesus Christ exemplified perfect leadership with his apostles, and then, at the Last Supper, Jesus summarized the three leadership traits necessary for every leader to succeed. These ideas are expressed in the concise book Last Supper Leadership, The Three Methods (2016).The Valley of the Sun (2020), is a compilation of thirteen short stories and three poems that are all set in the Phoenix metropolitan area where Squires lived for about thirty years, and where he worked in the construction trades for twenty years. Five of the stories are set at construction sites and are based on strange and amazing incidents. The other stories have a variety of settings in The Valley of the Sun, but also discuss the unexpected and remarkable experiences that provide us with that precious commodity, wisdom.

    Related to The Great Teeth of the Young Lions

    Related ebooks

    Literary Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      I Used to Give Men Mercy

      Feb 12, 2018

      I Used to Give Men Mercy
      12 min read

    • Article

      Intelligent Creatures

      Jul 6, 2023

      Intelligent Creatures
      19 min read

    • Article

      The Space Between Us

      Oct 9, 2019

      The Space Between Us
      8 min read

    • Article

      People Like Ants

      Jan 10, 2023

      Over the dining table, Bea leans closer to my breakfast. Her eyes are magnificent saucers behind her glasses, and I know she hates it—to wear glasses—but her expression of constant bewilderment is painfully endearing. One day, she’ll grow up and get

      13 min read

    • Article

      Mother House

      Aug 6, 2020

      Mother House
      9 min read

    • Article

      A Temporary Arrangement

      Oct 2, 2023

      A Temporary Arrangement
      19 min read

    • Article

      Peyton Burgess

      Mar 9, 2021

      Sometimes PB to my students, Sack to my friends, and always Pete to my family, my name is Peter Burgundy and I worry that death has been my only inspiration to be a better person—that death has had a way of making life understandable. And oh whoa, ho

      30 min read

    • Article

      Whiskey Sour

      Jul 18, 2023

      Whiskey Sour
      5 min read

    • Article

      Blood And Water

      Nov 3, 2022

      Blood And Water
      7 min read

    • Article

      The WITCH GIRL

      Oct 20, 2021

      The WITCH GIRL
      6 min read

    • Article

      Water Under The Bridge

      Nov 10, 2022

      The sound of water coursing over rocks filled my ears. The creek banks reached out with lush green vegetation as if to grab and hold me, and the warm June air was sweet with the smell of honeysuckle. The creek was small. Four good jumps and I could g

      26 min read

    • Article

      The Lost Treasure of Snake Eyes Slim

      Mar 1, 2024

      WAY BACK WHEN my ol’ great-grandpappy was just a young whippersnapper, Snake Eyes Slim was the meanest varmint west of the Rio Grande. That dirty lowdown outlaw robbed banks. He kicked dogs. He even tripped little old ladies as they crossed muddy str

      6 min read

    • Article

      Now That I’ve Arrived

      Dec 30, 2020

      Now That I’ve Arrived
      5 min read

    • Article

      Mothering–The Long Haul by Mandy Nolan

      Mar 4, 2021

      I remember packing my five kids in my Mum van and wondering if I would ever get my life back. The endless shopping, wiping, driving, dropping off, picking up, encouraging, hassling and general micromanaging sometimes made me feel like my head was goi

      3 min read

    • Article

      Metaphors

      Mar 10, 2023

      I’m knitting on my front porch when a car roars to a stop in front of my house. It’s a red Mustang convertible, top down on this warm Thursday afternoon in June. Two girls sit in the front, two in the back. They smile and wave at me. I smile back tho

      8 min read

    • Article

      The Witch GIRL

      Oct 24, 2023

      The Witch GIRL
      6 min read

    • Article

      Foxes

      Jun 15, 2019

      What’s worth happening happens in deep woods. Or so my daughter tells me. Her plotlines: In the deep woods someone is chasing, someone else is getting hacked. Hatchets are lifted, brought downdowndown. Men stutter blood onto snow. A cast of animals—s

      17 min read

    • Article

      Joshua Mohr: The Time I Robbed a Liquor Store

      Mar 10, 2017

      Our alibi was a sandy blanket in the back of my truck, an acoustic guitar, a knockout brunette in the passenger seat. Our alibi was a night picnic at the beach. When we got pulled over—if we got pulled over—the cop would peer in the cab and he’d thin

      6 min read

    • Article

      I Was a Public Schooler

      Jun 9, 2020

      The application to Waverley Glen Academy required that I spend a day sitting in on freshman classes and mixing with the student body to see how well I’d fit in. I was twelve. Picture the gleaming wooden corridors, the Persian rugs, the monogrammed si

      14 min read

    • Article

      Lol

      Jul 13, 2022

      Lol
      3 min read

    • Article

      How Postcards From My Mother Helped Me Survive Childhood

      Mar 3, 2017

      For years, my mother wrote to me every day. I’d been sent away to boarding school and for the first weeks was forbidden to call home­. I was eleven. This was just before mobile phones came beeping and clicking into the lives of everyday people. I di

      4 min read

    • Article

      Cricket League

      Jan 1, 2019

      Lydia Rosenburg, age 10 Bellingham, WA The boy curled against the rundown brick wall, too weak to even sit up. The pain behind his eyelids had dulled to a throb, but now his world was nothing but darkness. How long ago had it happened? Day and night,

      7 min read

    • Article

      The Leather Coat

      Apr 4, 2024

      The Leather Coat
      6 min read

    Reviews for The Great Teeth of the Young Lions

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words