Plot point

Plot Point (Hook)

Families can be both a blessing and a curse. This much is clear early in Jason Reynold’s novel Ghost. Readers are introduced to Castle “Ghost” Cranshaw, a seventh-grade kid who has the nickname “Ghost” for being so fast that it is like he is gone in the blink of an eye. The first time Ghost ever ran like a ghost, was when his father attempted to kill both him and his mother. This near-murder meant that Ghost had to run for his life; it also meant that his father – his family – was a curse. However, Ghost’s mother, Terri, is a blessing however; she is utterly devoted to her son, working long hours at the hospital to be able to provide for him and see him through school. Indeed, she does not want her son to end up like her incarcerated husband. Terri tells Coach that Ghost may run track provided he remains focused on his academics, something to which coach readily agrees.

Ghost recounts that he ran as fast as he did not only for his life, but to get away from what it had become. Ghost and his mother took shelter with Mr. Charles, who emerges as something of a grandfatherly figure for Ghost through the course of the novel. Ghost goes out of his way to Mr. Charles’s store, not only because he wants to buy sunflower seeds, but because he wants to visit Mr. Charles. Mr. Charles’s place is the one place that Ghost actually feels safe. It is the one place he does not feel he has to run from. But, as Reynolds will argue through Coach later in the novel, life is not about running from who you are, but running towards what you will become. It is no coincidence that Ghost should come across the Defenders in practice after finding comfort in his safe place. His life from here on out will be about running towards something better, rather than running away from himself and his past.