ATHENEUM BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS

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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2009 by Paul Volponi

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ATHENEUM BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS is a registered trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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Book design by Mike Rosamilia

The text for this book is set in Adobe Caslon Pro.

Manufactured in the United States of America

First Edition

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Volponi, Paul.

Homestretch / Paul Volponi. — 1st ed.

p. cm.

Summary: Five months after losing his mother, seventeen-year-old Gas runs away from an abusive father and gets a job working at an Arkansas racetrack, surrounded by the illegal Mexican immigrants he and his father blame for her death.

ISBN 978-1-4169-3987-0

[1. Horse racing—Fiction. 2. Horses—Fiction. 3. Jockeys—Fiction. 4. Prejudices—Fiction. 5. Mexican Americans—Fiction. 6. Fathers and sons—Fiction. 7. Runaways—Fiction. 8. Death—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.V8877Hom 2009 [Fic]—dc22

2008030024

ISBN 978-1-4169-9682-8 (eBook)