Description:
High school juniors Flint McCallister, Dwight Deshutis, and Rick Beaterson's four-man flag football team, Three Clams and an Oyster, is short one shellfish. Cade Savage, their fourth, would rather party than practice. The guys know they have to get serious if they really want to go to Nationals, and they're soon scrambling to find a replacement before the September deadline. Should they go with Thor Hupf, who's a great player but a total stoner, or Tim Goon, who, despite his penchant for silk shirts and bad hair, owns a ski cabin that he might invite the Clams to? Their best bet is pretty jock Rachel Summerfield, whose natural talent for flag football almost outweighs the fact that she doesn't shave her legs, and well, she's a girl. Through riotously funny conversations, intense confrontations, and outright arguments, it becomes clear that there's a lot more to this three-way friendship than football. From one momentous Friday to Sunday, McCallister, Deshutis, and Beaterson wrestle with questions of life, death, and loyalty in their pursuit of the one oyster that holds their winning pearl. Three Clams and an Oyster isn't about football any more than The Old Man and the Sea is about fishing. Instead, Randy Powell uses flag football as the metaphorical glue that holds this incredibly intelligent, subtle story about self-awareness and maturity together. He brilliantly captures that precise moment when adolescence blurs into adulthood, an epiphany that is sometimes a year in the making, or sometimes the product of one unforgettable weekend. (Ages 13 and older) --Jennifer Hubert
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