cover image Finding Their Stride: A Team of Young Runners Races to the Finish

Finding Their Stride: A Team of Young Runners Races to the Finish

Sally Pont. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH), $23 (240pp) ISBN 978-0-15-100347-1

As the cross-country coach, an English teacher and dean of students at Moravian Academy, a small independent high school in eastern Pennsylvania, Pont should be eminently qualified to tell the true-grit story of her team of young, determined distance runners pushing themselves toward a winning season. But Pont has trouble finding her own stride in this overwritten personal narrative. Her attempts to describe the physical and emotional challenges she and her students face too often falter on awkward metaphors: ""The cartilage in her knees under the taut skin appears to be smiling with bright molars."" Pont expresses deep affection and admiration for her students, and readers will believe they are worthy of it. But her efforts to paint these young athletes as interesting individuals never quite succeed, as their stories and personalities blend together. Keeping them straight is much like watching the very races Pont depicts: readers get occasional glimpses of runners as they emerge from the pack or drop behind, but they're too far away, and the course is too spread out, to appreciate any one performance. (Apr.)