Eric Walters

Eric Walters is a Canadian author and former teacher whose many books for younger readers address friendship, social pressure, history, and ethical choice. Black and White centers on Thomas and Denyse, two skilled young basketball players whose growing friendship confronts assumptions about race in their families and community. Walters’s classroom experience helped shape his direct approach to adolescent characters and the conflicts they recognize in daily life. Rather than treating sport as decoration, the novel uses practice, competition, and teamwork to create situations in which Thomas and Denyse must decide whether they will accept other people’s expectations. Black and White belongs to Walters’s broad catalogue of realistic fiction, which also includes stories of disaster, activism, military history, and global travel. The book’s paired title reflects both the racial divide around its protagonists and the temptation to reduce complicated people to simple categories. Walters keeps the emphasis on how trust develops through shared work and honest conversation.