Growing Up Ethnic in America

This short story collection has a few famous names--such as E.L. Doctorow, Toni Morrison, and Amy Tan--as well as the Sherman Alexie story that sparked the movie SMOKE SIGNALS. The narrators, while usually reading from the wiser perspective of adults, manage to add the adolescent touches that make the stories hit home as they illustrate the conflict between tradition and contemporary American culture. Topics such as teen pregnancy, racial attacks, and pop culture are addressed with frankness and occasional profanity. There are also more offbeat stories, such as one in which a boy is asked to fake letters to his grandmother from his dead father. J.A.S. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine