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    Sunny
    Sunny
    Sunny
    Ebook153 pages1 hour

    Sunny

    By Jason Reynolds

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    Sunny tries to shine despite his troubled past in this third novel in the critically acclaimed Track series from National Book Award finalist Jason Reynolds.

    Ghost. Patina. Sunny. Lu. 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 take them to the state championships. They all have a lot to lose, but they all have a lot to prove, not only to each other, but to themselves. Sunny is the main character in this novel, the third of four books in Jason Reynold’s electrifying middle grade series.

    Sunny is just that—sunny. Always ready with a goofy smile and something nice to say, Sunny is the chillest dude on the Defenders team. But his life hasn’t always been sun beamy-bright. You see, Sunny is a murderer. Or at least he thinks of himself that way. His mother died giving birth to him, and based on how Sunny’s dad treats him—ignoring him, making Sunny call him Darryl, never “Dad”—it’s no wonder Sunny thinks he’s to blame. It seems the only thing Sunny can do right in his dad’s eyes is win first place ribbons running the mile, just like his mom did. But Sunny doesn’t like running, never has. So he stops. Right in the middle of a race.

    With his relationship with his dad now worse than ever, the last thing Sunny wants to do is leave the other newbies—his only friends—behind. But you can’t be on a track team and not run. So Coach asks Sunny what he wants to do. Sunny’s answer? Dance. Yes, dance. But you also can’t be on a track team and dance. Then, in a stroke of genius only Jason Reynolds can conceive, Sunny discovers a track event that encompasses the hard beats of hip-hop, the precision of ballet, and the showmanship of dance as a whole: the discus throw. But as he practices for this new event, can he let go of everything that’s been eating him up inside?
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster
    Release dateApr 10, 2018
    ISBN9781481450232
    Author

    Jason Reynolds

    Jason Reynolds is a #1 New York Times bestselling author, a Newbery Award Honoree, a Printz Award Honoree, a two-time National Book Award finalist, a Kirkus Award winner, a UK Carnegie Medal winner, a two-time Walter Dean Myers Award winner, an NAACP Image Award Winner, an Odyssey Award Winner and two-time honoree, and the recipient of multiple Coretta Scott King honors and the Margaret A. Edwards Award. He was also the 2020–2022 National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. His many books include All American Boys (cowritten with Brendan Kiely); When I Was the Greatest; The Boy in the Black Suit; Stamped; As Brave as You; For Every One; the Track series (Ghost, Patina, Sunny, and Lu); Look Both Ways; Stuntboy, in the Meantime; Ain’t Burned All the Bright (recipient of the Caldecott Honor) and My Name Is Jason. Mine Too. (both cowritten with Jason Griffin); and Long Way Down, which received a Newbery Honor, a Printz Honor, and a Coretta Scott King Honor. His debut picture book, There Was a Party for Langston, won a Caldecott Honor and a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor. He lives in Washington, DC. You can find his ramblings at JasonWritesBooks.com.

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    Reviews for Sunny

    4/5

    61 ratings9 reviews

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    • 5/5
      This author has such a gift for creating characters with unique voices. He doesn't write stereotypes, he writes people. I don't generally read middle grade books, but I think this author is special. I wish that he had been around when I was a kid. The narrator of the audio book was also special. He got the beats and the rhythms of the language just right.
    • 3/5
      Sunny is usually the long distance runner for his track team, the Defenders, but he's never run for himself - always for his mom who died during childbirth. One day he decides he's just not going to run anymore, no matter how easy it is to win, he would much rather dance. The only sort of dancing on the track team is the discus, and through his journey learning how to participate in this new way, Sunny writes in his diary and shares all of his thoughts, feelings, and relationship challenges while finding himself. This was weird. Admittedly at the end of the book the author comes on and says that this is the book about the weird kid, but I had a hard time with the train of thought - maybe it was because it was audio (and the reader did a great job making it seem like train of thought - half sing song, half ramble, weird emphasis). I appreciated the look into Sunny after reading the first two books in the series but if it started with this I don't think I would have continued.
    • 4/5
      Eine tolle Fortsetzung! Sunny kommt ganz anders daher als Ghost und Patina, schreibt er doch Tagebuch und vor allem mit vielen Lautwörtern. Even genau weil er so anders ist, würde ich sagen, ist sein Part mein bisheriger Favorit.
    • 4/5
      Sunny, the Defenders' best runner, only runs for his father, who blames Sunny for his mother's death, but with his coach's help Sunny finds a way to combine track and field with his true passion, dancing.
    • 3/5
      For as long as Sunny can remember, his dad has been urging him to run, to train harder, to get stronger. Sunny's mother died when Sunny was born, and his dad wants to see Sunny achieve her dream of winning a marathon. And Sunny's good at running, no question. It's just that he kind of hates it. Sunny has other dreams -- but he also has the best friends of his life on the track team, and he doesn't want to quit. Can Coach find a solution?This third book in the series did not work for me. It's in diary format, and it suffers from the same issues that I've seen in other books for this format. For instance, there are several entries detailing the events of a track meet. Are we supposed to believe that Sunny brought his secret diary to the meet and whipped it out to write in every few minutes? And other entries are much more believable in terms of voice -- they're basically stream-of-consciousness -- but I just don't love Sunny's narrative voice the way I expected to. As one might expect by now, the book ends on a mild cliffhanger. All in all, I can see myself recommending this series to kids interested in sports books, but I won't revisit it.
    • 4/5
      Solid book 3 from the track series, this time focusing on Sunny and all the things he does not say to the world. It's a little harder to immediately relate to than the previous 2 books, partly because there's spaces in the diary format that cause things to jump a bit, partly because Sunny's home-schooled life is so different from the other kids' school stories, and finally because Sunny thinks in sound effects a lot, which takes some getting used to. Still, the story is strong, and it's good to know where Sunny is coming from.
    • 5/5
      children's fiction (3rd grade and up as a read-aloud, 4th and up as a read-alone--Sunny's spoken-word poetry style of writing will take a more seasoned reader to make sense of, but the themes he deals with are easy to feel for--deceased mother, withdrawn father, lonely homeschooled kid)

      Book 3 in the "Track" series stands on its own, but you're going to want to read them all anyway and might as well read them in order.

      Sunny is really "weird," as he likes to describe himself, and following his train of thought will amuse you but also endear you. Such a sweet, weird, lovable kid.
    • 3/5
      Each book in the Track series is told in the first person by a different member of the team. Reynolds writes in a somewhat different style for each character, to give them each their own writing voice. That was a big drawback in this book. The story to be told was good, but the voice was irritating to read. Rather than a straightforward first person narrative, the whole book is diary entries, as in "Dear Diary, I don't know if I ever told you..." I've always found the idea of writing Dear Diary, as though the diary were a person, to be highly affected and silly. Add to that the way Sunny often writes in strings of nonsensical sound effects... "Has a tick or a boom. Or something. Like a tickboom. Or a tick-tick boom. Or a tick-bada-bada-boom-bap-bap-oh. Or..." Yes, that was a direct quote from the book. All to say, the book was not an enjoyable read like the "Ghost" and "Patina" were. The story being told was good though. Sunny's mother died the day he was born. He's grown up calling his wealthy father "Darryl," and being tutored instead of going to school. His father has never addressed his own grief from the death of his wife, and as such, has not been a warm parent to his son. Always taken good care of him, but never given him the deep personal love Sonny craves. This is the real subject of the book. The whole track aspect (Sonny has always been a runner but starts throwing the discus in this book) feels like a somewhat irrelevant side story to the tale of the boy and his dad coping with their grief.I've read most of Jason Reynolds' books, and rated all of them before either a 4 or 5 star. This one wasn't up to par with his usual work.
    • 5/5
      Sunny always runs the mile race, but one day he just... stops. In his diary, he explains why: truth is, he doesn't like running. He's only been doing it because Darryl (his father) wants him to, because it's what his mother who died when Sunny was born, would have wanted. Sunny isn't sure he wants to give up the track team, with his friends and sense of belonging, so Coach decides to teach him discus instead.Ghost, Patina, Sunny, and Lu each are new kids on the track team this year, and each get their story in this loose series. I say loose because while they happen in a certain chronology, any of the three books I've read so far could be picked up with no prior knowledge of the others and still be a good read. There may be minor spoilers, but it's so much about each character's development that it really doesn't matter. Sunny's writing in a diary was a surprising change of pace for this one, and if you like audiobooks, the performance by Guy Lockard is phenomenal and really brings the words off the page with all of Sunny's cadences and humor and sound effects.

    Book preview

    Sunny - Jason Reynolds

    1

    Friday

    Dear Diary,

    It’s been a while. And because you’re back, because I brought you back (after spiraling your backbone back into place)—backity back back back—Aurelia, for some reason, feels like she needs to be introduced to you all over again. Like she don’t know you. Like she don’t remember you. But I do. So we don’t have to shake hands and do the whole my name is thing. But Aurelia might need to do that. Today she asked me if I still call you Diary, or if I call you Journal now. Or maybe Notebook. I told her Diary. I’ve always called you that. Because I like Diary. Notebook, no. And Dear Journal doesn’t really work the same. Doesn’t do it for me. Dear Diary is better, not just because of the double D alliteration action, but also because Diary reminds me of the name Darryl, so at least I feel like I’m talking to an actual someone. And Darryl reminds me of the word dairy, and dairy and diary are the same except for where i is. And I like dairy. At least milk. I can’t drink a lot of it, which you know, because it makes my stomach feel like it’s full of glue, which you also know. But I like it anyway. Because I’m weird. Which you definitely know. You know I like weird stuff. And everything about milk is weird. Even the word milk, which I think probably sounds like what milk sounds like when you guzzle it. Milkmilkmilkmilkmilk. I should start over.

    Dear Diary,

    This is my start over.

    Aurelia asked me how long it’s been since I’ve spoken to you. I told her, a while. When I was a little kid and was all yelly-yelly and Darryl wanted me to be more hushy-hushy, he gave me you and told me to put the noise on your pages whenever I felt like I needed to, which was all the time except for when I was running or sleeping. Told me to fold it up in you, so he could get some peace. So he could have quiet for concentration when we picked at our puzzles after work. Yes, Diary, we still do puzzles together. It’s still our way of, I guess, bonding. Anyway, after a while, my brain stopped pushing so much loud out of my mouth. Stopped noisey-ing up the puzzling. Thanks to you.

    You know how a health bar makes you less hungry, but don’t really make you full? Diary, that’s what you are. A health bar. You take the hunger-growl out of my mind. And once I got to a place where the growl was pretty much a purr, I stopped writing in you. But now the volume on the growl is turning up again. And even though it’s being turned up, I can feel it working its way down, pushing behind my eyes, and marching over my tongue, ready to come out. And my father, well, he still doesn’t want to be disturbed. And I don’t want to disturb him and his work, and his newspaper, and definitely not the puzzles, because the puzzles are our time. So, Diary, thanks for still being a friend. Something for me to bite down on. Something for me to whisper-scream to. Because sometimes I have too many screams up there. And they boing boing in my brain

    boing boing in my brain

    like a jumping bean,

    boing boing in my brain

    like a jumping bean

    my brain a moon bounce at a party nobody’s invited to.

    And now I can put them in you, again.

    And now Aurelia’s asking me about it. About you. Asking me about journaling. No. Diary-ing. Which sounds like diarrhea-ing. Which is sorta the same thing. Aurelia told me she thinks it’s a good thing I’ve been writing again. Even wanted to make sure I understood that whatever I write down don’t have to make sense as long as it’s really me. Really my brain and heart stuff. And that’s a good thing, even though I already knew that, because making sense makes no sense to me. Sense should kinda already be made, right? It should already exist like love, or maybe sky. You don’t have to create it or choreograph it or nothing like that. At least I don’t think you do. So none of this has to make sense, it just has to make… me, me. I’m already me, but it has to make me… something. Make me quiet and calm, and maybe also make me brave enough to do what I’m going to have to do tomorrow at the track meet, which is probably not going to be quiet or calm. That’s the real reason Aurelia’s interested in you, Diary. She thinks I don’t know that, but I know. I know because I know she knows I’m scared. That’s why I brought you back. I’m so scared. And scared don’t sound like eek. Or gasp. Scared sounds like glass. Shattering.

    Scared sounds like glass shattering.

    Diary, after all these years, you ever not want to be written in? On? Am I writing on you or in you? Or both? And how does that make you feel? I’ve never really asked you that. You ever just want to stay blank? Just be paper or whatever you think you are? Because I know what that’s like. And tomorrow, my father will too.

    Also, Aurelia called you a journal, but you’re a diary, so I will call you by your name.

    2

    Saturday

    Dear Diary,

    I know—at least I think I know—everything has a sound connected to it. Has a tick or a boom. Or something. Like a tickboom. Or a tick-tickboom. Or a tick-bada-bada-boom-bap-bap-ooh. Or a… I’m weird. I’m not really weird. I’m just… tickboom. Yeah.

    It’s been three weeks, and something like 1,814,400 ticks since I was watching Patina

    watching Patina,

    watching Patina,

    tee-nuh, tee-nuh,

    tick-tick boom and come from behind and crush the last leg of her first 4x800 relay. Sounded like shum-swip!-shum-swip!-shum-swip!-shum-swip! all the way to the feta-feta-finish line. She was cheesin’, and the crowd… went… wild. Cushhhhh! Deja and Krystal and Brit-Brat went wild. Cushhhhh! Coach and Whit went wild. Curron and Aaron and Mikey went wild. Cushhhhhh! Cushhhhh! Ghost and Lu went wild. Threw their arms around me while Patty did some kind of power strut over to us, a winner. Wih-wih-winner. Wih-winner. Patty’s a winner. A big winner. Number tenner, and a grinner, a bleep bloop blinner, that’s not a word but I’m a beginner, not like Patty, Patty’s a winner, wih-winner.

    Okay, I’m weird.

    Diary, you know I’m also a winner. Wih-winner. Which, for me, is boring. Buh-boring. And sounds like snore. Snuh-snoring. My race always, always, always sounds like other people talking. Like no one really caring that I’m running a mile—1600 meters—faster than they can probably run a block. Like, chick chick chick chick chick chick chick chick chick, check me out! Chick chick chick chick chick chick chick chick, check me out! But no one does, until the last lap. Which is the part where I win. Week after week. Wih-wih winner… whatever.

    I give the ribbons to Darryl. Whatever.

    He says something about my mother. Whatever.

    Your mother would want you to work harder.

    What’s wrong with you?

    She’d want you to tighten that form.

    Widen your stride. Beat your time.

    Like I always say, ROI. Return on Investment.

    What’s wrong with you?

    The more you put in, the more you get out.

    That last lap, open up your lungs. Breathe.

    Your mother would want you to breathe.

    What’s wrong with you?

    And then I immediately start thinking about what breathing sounds like. I can never really find it. Always just on the tip of my tongue. And then I start thinking about what not breathing sounds like. And then, while Darryl goes on and on about my mother, I start thinking about crying. Me, crying. Not me crying right then, but me crying when I was being born. And how I didn’t. Not at first. That’s what Darryl always tells me, has no problem telling me. That I didn’t cry. Because I wasn’t breathing. And my mother was crying. Then I started breathing. Then she stopped. And I started crying.

    Ships passing in the night.

    She’s not here because I am. Because of me. Because something is wrong with me, Diary, which made something wrong with her. Her. She has a name. She had a name. Has. You remember? It’s Regina. Regina Lancaster. Born on Rosa Parks’s birthday, delivered me on the day of a hurricane. And died.

    Dear Diary,

    Amniotic embolism.

    Those words are like confetti for the tongue. Like speaking a foreign language. Hypnotic symbolism, amniotic embolism. So much fun to say, but it means "death

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