Evaluation

The sledding hill is a book that was written by a veteran author, edited, and published, so it is obvious that it has good use of the six plus one traits of writing. This is about how each of the traits was written and some examples in the text.
The first trait of writing that was met exceptionally was ideas and content. The story was definitely packed with ideas from the author; the book is pretty much based on ideas of the author, so it automatically has to. There are many examples of Crutcher putting in ideas about religion and death, so you are able to take in and learn a lot from reading the novel. One very abstract, interesting, and clever idea was Chris’ vision of life after death; having the soul be able to connect with people and travel at speeds unachievable on earth. Novel ideas like these kept the book full of thought provoking content.
The organization in the story was also done very well. The events flowed together flawlessly without any confusion. The organization was good enough so that even the strangest parts, like Billy starting to communicate with Eddie after his death, made sense. It moved on so that the book was always entertaining. Sentence fluency was also done very well. Many of the sentences were written so that you were able to really feel like the character was talking to you, and you were able to feel their emotions. One phrase that showed some of that follows, “That’s like taking on Stephen Hawking in Jeopardy where all the categories are astrophysics. Actually, I’m the only one who thinks that, but if I’m going to get this story published, I have to take some creative license.”1 There were many sentences like those that flowed together in order to have a smooth story. Of course, in order to have them flow so well, the conventions had to be done very well, which they were. It kind of has to be something that is done well being that it is a published work.
One more trait that was presented in the book superbly was individual voice. The entire book was clearly written from a point of view that expresses his feelings. For example, his feelings toward the topic of religion showed through. He seemed to put the religious people in the spot of protagonists, as if their beliefs should be looked down upon. He also placed multiple agnostic characters in the story in order to use them to express his voice. His views toward religious people banning young adult literature also showed through. Because he is an author of YAL, we obviously know his position on the subject, but he also had characters who thought the same way. All of the characters were used to express his voice. Of course, he must also be a clever person. The word choice in sentences was very well thought out. Words used less ordinarily like “Precariously”2 make the book better. Overall, all of the traits (including presentation) were done in a way that made The Sledding Hill easier and more fun to follow.