...the line that separates the time when you're a child, when most things are provided for you, from the time when you're out on your own, taking care of yourself and forging your own way. That line is not often an age but an event... We're thrown into this so-called real world before we're ready (Jill Santopolo, Introduction).
No Such Thing as the Real World by An Na, M.T. Anderson, K.L. Going, Beth Kephart, Chris Lynch, and Jacqueline Woodson Harper Collins Publishers, 2009, 247 pp. $16.99 Short Story Collection ISBN: 9780061470592
Royal Readers,
That statement matches my thoughts exactly. Oftentimes it is how we handle events in our lives that help define who we are. Lovers, haters, bullies, victims, home wreckers, dreamers, thinkers, creators, destroyers to whatever comes in between will shape what the "Real World" will be like. It takes all kinds to make the world go round.
Six authors, six varied tales from realistic fiction to a bizarre tale that I'll say is science fiction and an invitation for Young Adults to submit their own "Real World" short stories are pretty cool. I recommend this for high school because of language and explicit and implicit sexual situations.
In An Na’s Complication we meet a young single mother with an agenda for revenge, but like the title suggests there’s a complication.
M. T. Anderson’s The Projection: A Two-Part Intervention needs an intervention, we meet two people (you really aren’t sure of their genders at first) who might be actors-hmm…the story is interesting at best and intricate as we find ourselves suspended from reality.
K.L. Going’s Survival is perhaps the realest and ultimate story of betrayal (or is it) and a classic case of sibling rivalry at a high school graduation no less.
Beth Kephart’s The Longest Distance is about suicide and its aftereffects on those left behind.
Chris Lynch’s Arrangements was a humorous look inside a father-son relationship, a funeral and a pawn shop business.
Jacqueline Woodson’s The Company is about the goings on in a Dance Company-enough said honey.
I chose this collection of short stories because I am familiar with the last author, Jacqueline Woodson who I have reviewed in the past. I could see these stories used in literature circles, for plot development and character studies. I would definitely use this book in a Creative Writing course. These short stories were written by some of today’s hottest and award winning young adult authors. Moreover, some of the plots alone are worth the price of admission.
Check out each author by clicking on their name:
An Na
M. T. Anderson
K. L. Going
Beth Kephart
Chris Lynch
Queenie
1 comment:
Hello Lurita, My attention was grabed by your first statement of different people making up the world. The YA reading this book review might feel a coonection due to seeing that different people are portrayed in this book. Hopefully they might connect with one. I did not see a whole lot of short story collections by new YA authors-I appreciate this recommendation.
I enjoyed meeting you and your enthusiastic comments in class. I hope you have a nice summer.
Catherine Schaaf
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