Tracks by Clayton Bess

Tracks

(Ages 14 up)—Houghton, 1986

The powerful evocative story of an 11-year-old who journeys with his older brother through the Dust Bowl of Texas and Oklahoma during the Depression... through harrowing poverty, dust storms, and a blood curdling encounter with the Ku Klux Klan... Love, loyalty and Blue’s unsullied vision transcend the harsh surroundings... Characterization is vivid, structure superb. Will be popular for its action, but it deserves recognition for its excellent craftsmanship and the beauty of its voice.

Kirkus Reviews

...a glorious adventure as the boys learn to survive in the speeding trains and the hobo jungles along the tracks. ...Blue and Monroe are wonderfully drawn, their relationship close, funny, and caring—Monroe always in love with some girl; Blue, a sharp observer... The story is told in colorful Oklahoma dialect... with sharp vignettes of the period... exciting action, strong relationships, and vivid historical detail shot throughout with cruelty, prejudice, humor, and brotherhood.

Booklist

Unanimously named an American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults, Tracks was also placed on the Sequoyah Young Adult Book Masterlist by the Oklahoma Library Association and on the Dorothy Canfield Fisher Masterlist.

The handsome book jacket for Tracks was created by Darryl Zudeck. I was told by my editor at Houghton Mifflin that when Darryl brought it into the office, the staff there gasped. I myself uttered an “ahhh!” when I opened the package with my ten gratis author’s copies.

I have only one tiny regret about it. I would like Blue's older brother, Monroe Monroe Monroe, to be more prominent in the train doorway. The book is a picaresque romance with Blue worshipping Monroe and Monroe madly in love with every girl they meet along the way. This jacket looks too much like a younger kid’s book.

Tracks received a unanimous vote as an American Library Association’s Best Book for Young Adults.

Many of my characters reappear in my other books or plays at different ages. Monroe and the entire Starr Family reappear in On Daddy’s Birthday. Photos of Monroe and the Starr girls in 1934 Oklahoma, and of the women the girls were to become in 1984 Hollywood, along with their brute of a father in the stage play On Daddy’s Birthday.

Warning

For students to whom I give this book as a prize, and for your parents, I need to tell you that Tracks is a book about racism, and racism is ugly. A word I depise in the English language is the word nigger. It is ugly and full of offense to all of us.
In Tracks the word is used a few times, once by a woman who has the soul, really, of an angel, and who helps Blue and Monroe with a generosity of spirit that makes me weep. This woman is a character of her time and place. She uses the word in an offhand way, just as her neighbors would have used it during this time and place. I often regret that I included this moment when I wrote Tracks and it is worth remarking that when I read this section of the book out loud to classes I usually omit the word. I can't bring myself to say it out loud in front of young ears. But there it is.
If you write about an ugly subject, you must sometimes use ugly language. For those of you who offend easily, I ask you to think about what is being portrayed here, and understand.

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