Forward by Susan Van Kirk

When Jim Jacobs handed me the manuscript of No Ordinary Season and told me it was a young adult novel, I was surprised. After all, he had spent thirty-six years in elementary classrooms teaching in public schools. He had coached track, boxing, and basketball, but briefly. I wondered what he knew about high school culture, an area I was well acquainted with since I taught high school classes over my whole career. To add to my curiosity, I puzzled over how his manuscript fit with his own passionate goals to make the world better. Jim has spent his life on the front lines of social issues—concerns about class attitudes and divisions, racial and religious prejudice, and social injustice. He has spoken out about human rights, equity for marginalized children, free speech, and voter rights. Seriously? A novel about teenage angst? So I read his manuscript. No Ordinary Season is no ordinary young adult novel. He has realistically captured the world of high school students with all their turmoil, disappointments, hopes, and dreams. However, Jacobs has added a deeper dimension: painting a picture of the human condition while using the very concerns he has spent his life addressing. What results is a story with an underlying narrative that gives it richness and depth. Jacobs has created the fictional town of River Bend, Indiana and its high school. River Bend is a Midwestern town where kids grow up riding bicycles and hanging around at Elrod’s Quick Mart. Like many small towns, its families live for sports and the Friday night football or basketball games. Residents have opinions on the issues of the day, gossip spreads like wildfire, and everyone understands the existing social structure. They have deep-seated beliefs and barely hidden prejudices. Cassie Garnet, River Bend High School senior, could have been perfectly happy running on her loser cross country team, graduating from high school, getting a job at the local diner, and daydreaming that Jake Nader might notice her. But in fiction, as in real life, unexpected events happen to change all that. Into Cassie’s life—and the normal order of things—comes the exotic Charna Rothstein, a Jewish woman in a gentile world, who exudes self-confidence, intelligence, humanity, and a strict self-discipline. She’s hired by the high school to teach chemistry and to coach Carrie’s cross country team—a group that is mediocre at best. Rothstein’s arrival is the event that lifts No Ordinary Season above the mundane tale of yet another teenage coming-of-age novel. Suddenly, one season in the story of a sports team provides the backdrop for some of life’s most difficult challenges. Rothstein, as well as Kyesha Hendrix, a new cross country runner from the only black family in town, allow Jacobs to reflect on issues important to all of our lives: integrity, loyalty, guilt, right and wrong, redemption, betrayal, tolerance, hope, jealousy, friendship and trust. Dating, sex, and the pressures of carrying the town’s athletic hopes—in other words, the grist of young adult novels is all here. But Jacobs adds a deeper dimension that follows the work of his own values and life, pointing out issues of social class, racial and religious prejudices, and social injustice. His memorable characters—C.R. Rothstein, the new coach; Kyesha Hendrix, a heck of a fast runner; Henry Elrod, the school janitor who knows all; “Prissy Butt” McGrady, the school secretary who believes she’s in charge; Cassie’s parents, a source of both teenage embarrassment and pride; and Jake Nader, the stuff of Cassie’s dreams—create the authentic world of a small town, and they people Cassie’s life with all of its disappointments and joys. No Ordinary Season unfolds the story of Cassie Garnet and the members of River Bend’s cross country team, and what a season it is! Susan Van Kirk
Author of The Endurance Mysteries (Five Star/Cengage Publishing)

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