A Coming-of-Age Diary Dance: Sunny, Book 3 in Jason Reynolds’ Defenders Track Team Series

In book three of Jason Reynold’s acclaimed Defenders Track Team series, which follows the stories of Ghost and Patina, we hear from Sunny, a homeschooled only child with a massive collection of first place ribbons. He’s used to being the winner of the one-mile race but, as he states upfront in his first person diary entries, he’s ready to take his last lap. Or, skip his last lap, as it were. In dramatic fashion, he stops, full stop, three-quarters of the way through a race he would have won by a landslide (yet again.) A true case of quitting while you’re ahead.

Gradually, we, as readers, also come to learn that, for Sunny, a shift is urgent and necessary. He might be a natural-born runner, but, since his mother died of an amniotic embolism during childbirth, he feels like he’s a born-murderer, the one who poisoned her blood. With a distant father, who insists Sunny call him Darryl and forces him to run for a lost mother who couldn’t, Sunny has few places to turn to in his guilt and grief. It’s his homeschool teacher, Aurelia, and the elderly people he visits in the hospital where his grandfather works, that inspire Sunny to dance through his emotions rather than run away from them.

Sunny is perfect for readers who love sports and dance, and the “weird” kids, who will find a companion in Sunny and his journal, a safe space where his unique-you-ness spills out onto the page. As it is in the other books Reynolds’ series, the track becomes a place for Sunny and his teammates to learn something about why they’re on the field and how they can grow toward who they want and need to be when they’re away from it.