Ghost

Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2016

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.

Download PDF

Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-3

Chapters 4-6

Chapters 7-10

Background

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Chapters 1-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 1 Summary: “World Records”

Content Warning: The source material and this guide discuss domestic violence.

A teenager named Castle Cranshaw lists several strange world records, including a woman who owned 5,631 rubber ducks. He believes that he has the record for buying the most sunflower seeds from Mr. Charles’s country store. After buying a pack, Castle goes to a bus stop and watches people through the front window of a gym across the street. He likes to watch the people on the stair-stepper machines and wonder who will pass out first.

Castle remembers his father watching football on TV while eating sunflower seeds. One night, when his father was as drunk as Castle had ever seen him, he shot at Castle and his mother, Teri, with a pistol. He was arrested and sentenced to 10 years in prison. Castle and Teri spent that night hiding at Mr. Charles’s store.

Castle sees kids running on the track at the park and thinks, “Running ain’t nothing I ever had to practice. It’s just something I knew how to do” (7). He thinks that the night his father chased them was the night he learned how to run.

Chapter 2 Summary: “World Record for the Fastest Tryout Ever”

Castle watches the kids run as their coach takes them through warmups. Castle is more interested in basketball than running because he can’t think of any famous runners. A boy named Lu asks the coach if it’s true that he ran in the Olympics. The coach doesn’t answer and tells him that he must focus on his progress, not on his past.

The coach has Lu, a “pretty boy,” run a 100-meter dash, and he is fast. A larger boy named Sunny is next, and Castle sees that running is difficult for him. Sunny tries as hard as he can, but the other kids laugh at him. Sunny doesn’t appear to care. A tall girl named Patina is almost as fast as Lu. Then the coach has the “vets” run to show the three new runners their speed. No one beats Lu, which bothers Castle, although he doesn’t know why he cares. He thinks briefly of a bully at school named Brandon.

Lu prepares to try to beat his first time, and Castle goes and stands next to him on the starting line, preparing to run. The coach tells him to leave, but Castle tells him to blow the whistle. He and Lu run, and when Lu asks who won, the coach responds that it was “pretty close.”

The coach convinces Castle to stay for the rest of practice, despite his protests that he doesn’t run for a team and wants to play basketball. He introduces himself as Ghost, which is a nickname he gave himself the night he and his mother escaped from his father.

Coach Brody gives him a ride home in his taxi—he is also a taxi driver. On the way to Glass Manor, Castle’s neighborhood, they pass his mother as she is walking home from work, and they pick her up as well. Coach tells her that with training, Castle could be a “problem,” meaning, a formidable competitor. Teri says that Castle is “already a serious problem” and has to focus on school (27).

Coach agrees to Teri’s proposal: Castle can join the team—the Defenders—but if he messes up one time, he must quit. Coach must also ensure Castle does his homework and give him a ride home each night. Coach agrees.

Chapter 3 Summary: “World Record for the Most Altercations”

Castle says that he has a “rap sheet” at school, but now, he is committed to avoiding all altercations that might cost him his spot on the track team. The next day at school, he is eating with his friends, Dre and Red, when Brandon starts making fun of him for living at Glass Manor. Brandon throws a chicken wing at him. Castle throws his carton of chocolate milk back and hits Brandon with his lunch tray, then punches him repeatedly after he falls to the ground.

Principal Marshall decides not to suspend Castle for more than that day once Castle explains how the fight started. Castle can’t call his mother, however, because she will pull him off the track team. He calls Coach after telling the principal he is calling his uncle.

After Coach picks him up, he takes Castle to the track to train for three hours before practice. Castle tells him that beating Brandon up didn’t make him feel tough because to feel tough, you have to do something that scares you. He isn’t scared of fighting, but he fears his father and himself because he can’t always control his anger. “Trouble is,” says Coach, “you can’t run away from yourself. Unfortunately, ain’t nobody that fast” (51).

Chapters 1-3 Analysis

Chapters 1 through 3 introduce the book’s major characters and set the tone for Castle’s narrative arc. His progression throughout the novel transitions from the anger, bravado, and fear of these first three chapters into self-acceptance and pride in the final chapters. In the beginning, however, nothing is easy for him.

The novel is written in the first person from Castle’s perspective, creating intimacy with the protagonist’s thoughts and feelings. This is especially crucial in these early chapters when Castle keeps his feelings to himself in the process of Overcoming Childhood Trauma. While he opens up to others later, a crucial step in his healing process, he is still stuck in the early stages, frozen by his grief. The casual tone with which he relays the information about his father’s abuse reveals a curated nonchalance, revealing the damage it caused—and is still causing—him. Castle’s confidence is largely an act. Although he is willing to fight and stand up for himself (or perhaps even unable to refrain from doing so), he is insecure about where he lives, his haircut, the food he eats, his mother’s job, and his outsider status at school. Castle is bold, but there is little sense that he feels any pride at this starting point.

Castle’s interactions with others help characterize him. His reaction to Lu is a microcosm of the way he perceives the world. He instantly believes that Lu is a “pretty boy” in expensive clothes who has had everything in his life handed to him. He doesn’t wish to beat Lu in the race to show that he is fast; he wants Lu to be diminished and to know that, despite all his flashy clothes, he can be beaten. His fight with Brandon demonstrates his rage, hitting him with his lunch tray and beating him badly. The fight gives him a chance to explain his views on fear and toughness to Coach. Castle does not say that fighting makes him feel tough because he is only afraid of his father and himself. This is another layer of his trauma, as Castle cannot find a healthy outlet for his anger and fears he will become like his father and harm his loved ones.

Coach is introduced as the archetypical mentor, a father figure who can guide Castle through his emotions since his own father is absent. This introduces two major themes in the text. The first is Coach’s maxim that You Can’t Escape Yourself—while fighting might not look like running, it’s a way for Castle to suppress his fear and negative emotions. Only by confronting his pain will Castle find a path forward, and he ultimately achieves this through Teamwork and Belonging. As the novel progresses, Castle’s teammates and Coach will understand him far better than he ever could have guessed. They all have secrets, and Coach understands that while pain and secrets make a person feel alienated and isolated, they are one of the few things that all people have in common. As such, joining the Defenders immediately starts Castle’s journey toward recovery as he is finally in a place where he belongs.