Strong Like You
$14.99
An impoverished fifteen-year-old linebacker grapples with ideas about strength and masculinity after the dope-dealing father he idolized goes missing.
Description
I haven’t cried one time since you disappeared. Not even at football practice when Paton Roper told the whole team you were probably dead. He said, “You know how sometimes a dog gets sick or bites somebody and you have to put it down?”
Somebody said, “Yep.”
“That’s probably what happened to Walker’s daddy.”
Walker Lauderdale hasn’t cried once since his daddy went missing. And even though everyone says he’s dead, Walker won’t give up hope. He knows his father is out there, somewhere, cutting a wild trail through the Ozarks like always. But when a relative threatens to kick Walker and his momma out of the family home, Walker realizes he has no choice but to look for his daddy—a search that leads him straight to a drug-addled and dangerous man named Lukas Fisher. While attempting to balance life as a normal fifteen-year-old boy and star player on the football team, Walker begins a desperate search across the hills of the Ozarks for the man who, for better or worse, taught him everything he knows about strength.
Additional information
| Format | Paperback |
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I haven’t cried one time since you disappeared. Not even at football practice when Paton Roper told the whole team you were probably dead. He said, “You know how sometimes a dog gets sick or bites somebody and you have to put it down?”
Somebody said, “Yep.”
“That’s probably what happened to Walker’s daddy.”
Walker Lauderdale hasn’t cried once since his daddy went missing. And even though everyone says he’s dead, Walker won’t give up hope. He knows his father is out there, somewhere, cutting a wild trail through the Ozarks like always. But when a relative threatens to kick Walker and his momma out of the family home, Walker realizes he has no choice but to look for his daddy—a search that leads him straight to a drug-addled and dangerous man named Lukas Fisher. While attempting to balance life as a normal fifteen-year-old boy and star player on the football team, Walker begins a desperate search across the hills of the Ozarks for the man who, for better or worse, taught him everything he knows about strength.
Copyright: 2024
Page Count: 224
Trim Size: 5.25 x 8
Lexile: HL550L
Rights Territory: Worldwide
Categories:
YOUNG ADULT FICTION / Boys & Men
YOUNG ADULT FICTION / Coming of Age
YOUNG ADULT FICTION / Sports & Recreation / Football
T. L. Simpson is an award-winning journalist and editor of the Courier, a newspaper in his hometown of Russellville, Arkansas. Simpson spent nearly ten years covering high school and collegiate sports before taking over as editor. During that time, he was also the paper’s primary crime reporter. In a lot of ways, Strong Like You is the result of his experiences with covering both.
“The book explores masculinity, with Walker having a heartening insight near the end, when he realizes that with the right help, people can learn better than they were taught. . . . A grim but not entirely hopeless picture of life in the Ozarks, threaded with tragedies both immediate and endemic.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Strong Like You is an engaging novel in which a high school football star is forced to confront his ideas of manhood and forge better ones.” —Foreword Reviews
“A serious look at the legacy and impact of violence, especially around the toxic culture of football, along with a compassionate view of the struggle and frequent hopelessness of rural poverty, the novel makes for a compelling read with a mixed but ultimately hopeful conclusion. Recommended for libraries serving middle and high schoolers.” —School Library Journal
“This is a story of courage, family loyalty and friendship. It is a story that shows the reader the ultimate risk of one whose life is directed by violence.” —Children’s Literature
2024 Moonbeam Awards Silver Medalist (Young Adult – General)
A 2025 Indiana Read Aloud Selection