I See Reality

October 26, 2015
Aiming to shine a light on the virtues of stories about real teens living in the real world, this collection features 12 tales from writers including Trisha Leaver, Kekla Magoon, James Preller, and Marcella Pixley. It’s a solid concept, but the sheer brevity of the entries—most are 25 pages or so—doesn’t always give them a chance to shine and can reduce the characters to their situations, in stories about unexpected pregnancy, a domineering boyfriend, school shootings, and sexual identity. Amid the prose offerings are two illustrated entries: like his novels, Stephen Emond’s “The Night of the Living Creeper” mixes sequences of text and artwork (and happens to be narrated by a cat); Faith Erin Hicks’s untitled graphic short, set at an end-of-high-school pool party, captures the thrilling promise of new experiences, romantic and otherwise. Patrick Flores-Scott’s “The Good Brother,” about twins dealing with their immigration status, creates both a crisis situation and distinctive characters. While these stories can be a mixed bag, readers may well be enticed to seek out the contributors’ longer work. Ages 14–up.

October 1, 2015
Twelve original stories explore the many issues teenagers face today. "The classification of living things is called taxonomy," explains the biology teacher in Kristin Elizabeth Clark's "The Downside of Fabulous," and the stories collected in this volume show how teens identify and classify themselves in the taxonomic kingdom of high school life. Finding is the theme behind most stories here]finding a friend, a partner, a voice, a home, courage]and the stories put a human face on the issues teens face: relationships, sexuality, school shootings, immigration, addiction, and death. Kekla Magoon's "Makeshift" presents a fatherless "half-black girl who looks all white" yearning for a safe home and a sense of belonging. Fourteen-year-old June Bug Jordan in Marcella Pixley's lyrically written "Hush" copes with a father dying of AIDS. In "Blackbird," Lilly wants to be more than "the sister of the crazy kid who had shot his girlfriend in the hallway," and a new friend helps her to find her voice in a story both poignant and hopeful. Most stories are told from a first-person point of view, though a cat narrates Stephen Emond's "The Night of the Living Creeper," and speech bubbles carry Faith Erin Hicks' graphic story "Untitled." The stories are consistently strong, though the weight of angst accumulates with the reading of too many stories in one sitting. An important collection for older teens. (Anthology. 15-18)

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December 1, 2015

Gr 10 Up-Tackling feelings-from grief to joy, from sorrow to hope, and from loss to love-this short story collection portrays real emotions of teenagers in real-life situations. Included in this volume are the conversation a girl has with herself while preparing to break up with an emotionally manipulative boyfriend, the story of a survivor of a high school shooting, an illustrated vignette told from the perspective of a family's cat about a creeper at a Halloween party, and a short work in comic book format about the surprising secret of a high school's golden couple. Some of the standouts include "Coffee Chameleon" by Jay Clark, about an Adderall addict and his ex-girlfriend; "Hush" by Marcella Pixley, the story of the daughter of one of America's earliest AIDS victims who lives with her mentally fragile mother in a falling-down house; and "The Good Brother" by Patrick Flores-Scott, which contains the line that provides this volume's title. With authors as diverse as Heather Demetrios, Trisha Leaver, Kekla Magoon, and Jordan Sonnenblick, this collection unflinchingly addresses subjects such as sexuality, abortion, addiction, school shootings, and abuse. VERDICT From beginning to end, this is a compelling work that looks at the reality teens are faced with today.-Heather M. Campbell, formerly at Philip S. Miller Library, Castle Rock, CO

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