Chris Crutcher. A Stotan for Young Adults

Chris Crutcher is a literary icon in the field of young adult literature. With his first book, Running Loose published in 1983, Crutcher established a reputation for giving young adults a voice in realistic fiction. Since then, Crutcher has written a number of books with spot-on depictions of young adults growing through hard times, including Ironman, Whale Talk, Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes, and Stotan! In Chris Crutcher: A Stotan for Young Adults, Bryan Gillis and Pam B. Cole examine the life, career, and works of this young adult advocate.

This volume opens with a never-before-published comprehensive portrait of the author's life, gleaned from numerous conversations with Crutcher. The authors explore Crutcher's childhood, his adolescent years, his life as an adult, and his career as a family counselor and examine how those experiences became fodder for his stories. The authors also discuss Crutcher's encounters with censorship and his philosophical stance. Gillis and Cole...