The Sledding Hill is a book I initially read long ago during my freshman "Banned Books and Censorship" class; I did not like it. But, any book that started as assigned reading deserves a fair second chance.

The synopsis of this book ultimately does not matter; it is intentionally meta. The author, Chris Crutcher, known for constant book-related challenges and censorship, writes a book about an author, Chris Crutcher, who is having a book challenged and banned. 

Interestingly, real-life Chris Crutcher intentionally wrote this book without any "bad language", so that if (and when) THIS book became challenged, it would be strictly due to the content matter.

The POV of The Sledding Hill comes from super omniscient and super dead Billy Bartholomew, who hangs around to keep an eye on his best friend Eddie Proffit. Eddie has had a rough few months, with the death of both his father and best friend in two separate freak accidents. Eddie feels out of control, but knows how to control one thing - his voice, taking a vow of silence. After reading assigned reading "Warren Peece" by Chris Crutcher, he begins to find his voice again - until the church intervenes to have the book removed from the classroom. 

At one point, Billy declares that there are no bad guys in this story, which would be true if the Red Brick Church was not deliberately depicted as the antagonistic force.

The Sledding Hill was.....fine. It is not quite the slog-induced required reading that it was all that time ago, but is not quite strong enough to stand on its own as a memorable must-read.