BARBARA KINGSOLVER CALLS short stories "Large truths in tight spaces," and those who love the form agree. In a fast-paced world, the short story can be read in one sitting, providing complete satisfaction for the reader; it doesn't give readers the whole enchilada, just the hot sauce.
The popularity of the short story has undergone peaks and valleys throughout its history; certainly most adults remember classics from their adolescent years—Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio, O. Henry's "The Gift of the Magi," the tales of Edgar Allan Poe, and Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery." For a period of time the publication of original short stories fell on hard times, but Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2000, inspired both writers and publishers to work in this format. The result has been an avalanche of short story collections in the twenty-first century aimed at adolescent readers. In the world of teens, constantly bombarded by electronic media, the short story works with a short attention span, and is ideal, as the critic Michael Cart has written, for those who might be best described as "hummingbirds on twelve cups of coffee."
Many short story collections—like Hazel Rochman's Somehow Tenderness Survives —bring together the work of various authors on different topics. I've included many of these volumes in the booklist. Most of my selections focus on short story collections by individual authors, those who have shown a particular mastery of this genre.
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Winesburg, Ohio
14–18 • Huebsch • 1919 • 256 pp.
In a series of unflinching and unsentimental character studies, Sherwood Anderson explores the hopes and heartbreaks of the citizens of a northern Ohio village at the turn of the twentieth century. The two dozen interlinked stories introduce a disgraced schoolteacher, a religious zealot, alcoholics, unhappy families, doomed lovers, and the young cub reporter George Willard, who has observed the sad lives of his neighbors and will someday, we suspect, commit their stories to paper. Winesburg, Ohio helped usher in a new era of naturalistic writing and influenced authors such as Hemingway, but it is still read today for its uncanny observations of human behavior and timeless themes. Once considered somewhat scandalous for its frank treatment of sexuality, within a generation or two the book was studied in high schools. Today's students have the option of reading Anderson's stories from either a bound volume or off the computer screen; Project Gutenberg has provided free public access to the entire text on the Internet, giving the lazy midwestern town of Winesburg, Ohio, a new home in cyberspace.
MARION DANE BAUER, EDITOR
Am I Blue?: Coming Out from the Silence
14–18 • Harper • 1994 • 273 pp.
A groundbreaking anthology, Am I Blue? deals frankly and honestly with gay issues from a young adult perspective. Many of the sixteen stories concern teenagers coming to terms with their own sexuality; others focus on the acceptance of gay friends and relatives. Some of the finest writers for young adults have contributed selections, including M. E. Kerr, Francesca Lia Block, Jacqueline Woodson, Gregory Maguire, and Lois Lowry. These well-written stories encompass a wide range of styles and genres, from the title story, Bruce Coville's comic fantasy, to tales set in other times and places. In her introduction, Bauer states, "It is my dream that ten years from now such an anthology will not be needed, that gay and lesbian characters will be as integrated into juvenile literature as they are in life." These stories provide a powerful commentary about societal and emotional responses to homosexuality.
RAY BRADBURY
Dandelion Wine: A Novel
12–14 • Knopf • 1957 • 267 pp.
Though Dandelion Wine is subtitled "a novel," many readers consider it a collection of short fiction connected by place (Green Town, Illinois), time (the summer of 1928), and a central character (twelve-year-old Douglas Spaulding—though he does not appear in all of the stories). Ray Bradbury wrote the book over the course of twelve years, beginning each morning by jotting down random words, then using free association to recall images and scenes from his own childhood in Waukegan, Illinois. The resulting stories—many originally published in magazines before being collected here—recall the everyday wonders of getting a new pair of tennis shoes, making wine in the cellar, and playing kick-the-can after supper. They also recount the bittersweet times of losing friends and loved ones, taking the last ride on the town trolley, and fearing "The Lonely One," a menacing figure who terrorizes the town. Bradbury is best known for his science fiction and fantasy, and while this book has a realistic setting, the imagery-laden prose is so evocative and pleasurable that readers may feel they've been transported to a bygone era, suffused with the magic of summertime.
TRUMAN CAPOTE
Breakfast at Tiffany's
14–18 • Random House • 1958 • 178 pp.
The four stories in Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's represent the wide range of this author's craft. The novella-length title piece tells the story of the appealingly enigmatic Holly Golightly, formerly of Tulip, Texas, and now living the madcap life of a New York sophisticate. Readers familiar with her only from the 1961 Audrey Hepburn film may be surprised at how much more powerful—and emotionally haunting—her story seems in its original incarnation. Two brief narratives (an offbeat romance set in Haiti and the tale of friendship between two inmates in a rural prison farm) are followed by "A Christmas Memory," an autobiographical story so perfectly written that it has achieved classic status. Individually, each story is a unique and memorable reading experience; collectively, they demonstrate Capote's stylistic diversity and keen insight into a broad gamut of human nature.
MICHAEL CART, EDITOR
Rush Hour: A Journal of Contemporary Voices
12–16 • Delacorte • 2004–2006 • 144– 240 pp.
In the four volumes of Rush Hour, Michael Cart set out to publish offbeat, unprecedented fiction, written with authenticity for young adults. Each volume combines seasoned veterans with those unknown to the audience and brings together graphic novels, short stories, poetry, excerpts from novels, flash fiction, and art around a theme. Eclectic and bold in its concept, Rush Hour provides compelling short material guaranteed to capture the interest of teens.
JUDITH ORTIZ COFER
An Island Like You: Stories of the Barrio
12–14 • Orchard • 1995 • 165 pp.
In the first story in this collection, an American teenager spends the summer with her mother's relatives in Puerto Rico; the rest of the dozen tales take place in her New Jersey barrio where Spanish is spoken among neighbors, music and dancing fill the sometimes-dangerous streets, and American-raised teenagers butt heads with their more traditional parents. Against this colorful backdrop, overwhelmed Arturo seeks refuge in a local church, Luis offers a gift to a beautiful girl who lives in a funeral home, and Teresa and Anita find summer jobs. Each polished story stands alone, but one of the pleasures of this collection comes from seeing the characters reappear throughout, often demonstrating their continuing growth and change. Doris—introduced as a shy and self-described invisible girl—later emerges as a leader, creating a teen theater program and arranging a party to honor a neighborhood outcast. This vibrant and engaging volume helps fill a gap in young adult fiction, presenting an all-too-rare look at Hispanic themes and characters.
CHRIS CRUTCHER
Athletic Shorts: Six Short Stories
14–18 • Greenwillow • 1991 • 154 pp.
Best known for his hard-hitting young adult novels that use sports as a metaphor for life and growing up, Chris Crutcher tackles the short story in this collection of involving tales. The best known, "A Brief Moment in the Life of Angus Bethune," was also the first story Crutcher ever tried writing. In it, an overweight high school student with two pairs of gay parents gets elected Winter Ball King as a class joke. This story, which has an unexpectedly touching conclusion, was made into the 1995 film Angus. The other entries all concern characters introduced in Crutcher's novels— Running Loose, Stotan!, and The Crazy Horse Electric Game— as they face athletic challenges (wrestling Dad or a female opponent) and confront their own fears and prejudices. In one story, for instance, teenage Louie Banks befriends a young man with AIDS. Fans of Crutcher's novels will enjoy checking in on these familiar characters; those who simply enjoy short stories will find this volume an excellent introduction to the author's work.
DAVE EGGERS, EDITOR
The Best American Nonrequired Reading
14–18 • Houghton Mifflin • annual series • around 400 pp.
For students bogged down with school assignments, the concept of "pleasure reading" may seem unlikely. Yet young adults can read this annual series without fear of due dates or exam questions—a collection of short fiction and essays that celebrate the sheer enjoyment and entertainment of good writing. Begun in 2002 and edited by Dave Eggers, The Best American Nonrequired Reading gathers material from mainstream magazines such as The New Yorker and Esquire, as well as alternative literary journals and an occasional online publication. The result is an annual filled with edgy short stories by new writers; hip essays—both comic and serious—by authors such as David Sedaris and David Mamet; Lynda Barry comic strips; and thought-provoking investigative journalism that delves into fast-food cravings and traces the journey of a T-shirt from its original owner in New York City to an impoverished man in rural Uganda. With approximately two dozen selections in each volume, these eminently browsable books are sure to offer something for every taste.
ALICE HOFFMAN
Blackbird House
14–18 • Doubleday • 2004 • 225 pp.
When the Boston Globe asked Alice Hoffman to write a short story about summer on Cape Cod, she submitted "The Summer Kitchen," a tale of a family moving into a new vacation home as their young daughter recovers from cancer. Hoffman set the story in her own summer house on Cape Cod and began to wonder about the experiences of other families who had lived there in past generations. Blackbird House is a collection of twelve interlinked stories set in the same New England farmhouse at different points in history. During the British occupation, a boy and his father go off to sea. In a story with a twist at the end, a young man buys a farm with money he was paid for taking another man's place in the Civil War. During a blizzard, a twentieth-century teenager stumbles on the murder of an abusive neighbor. Hoffman's rich, dreamy prose begs to be read aloud and savored in stories that often have the raw, simple power of folklore and fairy tales.
SHIRLEY JACKSON
The Lottery and Other Stories
14–18 • Farrar, Straus • 1949 • 302 pp.
Many teens know the much-anthologized title story, but this volume provides a broader look at Shirley Jackson. Although not always as shocking as "The Lottery," which speaks to anyone who has ever felt like an outcast, the more than twenty stories in this collection almost always introduce an element of horror or madness into ordinary domestic situations. They include Jackson's classic tale of her son's first days of kindergarten (the darkly comic "Charles") as well as several entries that expose the racial and religious prejudices of seemingly well-bred middle-class characters. Though written in the 1940s, these often subtle studies of intolerance still retain power for modern readers. Threaded throughout the volume are a number of stories about the enigmatic James Harris, who appears in various guises, including an absent bridegroom and a four-year-old boy playing in a sandbox, and who disrupts and destroys the lives of nearly everyone he encounters. At their best, Jackson's disquieting tales of everyday horror linger in the imagination like impossible-to-forget bad dreams.
JHUMPA LAHIRI
Interpreter of Maladies
14–18 • Houghton Mifflin • 1999 • 198 pp.
PULITZER PRIZE
When the Pulitzers were announced in the spring of 2000, many were surprised when the fiction award went to a paperback book written by a young, first-time author of East Indian descent. The award brought immediate attention—and bestseller status—to Jhumpa Lahiri's collection of nine stories that highlight the Indian experience both at home and abroad. With a handful set on the Indian subcontinent, the best entries concern first- and second-generation Indians living in the United States. Several poignantly describe defining moments that either strengthen or destroy a beginning marriage. Some are written from the perspective of children: a ten-year-old girl sees the impact of Pakistan's civil war on a family friend; young Eliot observes the loneliness and homesickness of his babysitter, an immigrant faculty wife from India. Lahiri's themes of identity, displacement, and love are a natural fit for young adult readers, as is her accessible, well-crafted prose.
NORMAN MACLEAN
A River Runs Through It and Other Stories
14–18 • University of Chicago • 1976 • 239 pp.
Norman Maclean's book contains only three stories. Two concern his youthful experiences at a logging camp working for the U.S. Forest Service. The title piece is a novella-length account of fly-fishing with his father and younger brother. Maclean describes how his minister father taught his sons to fish at an early age, and he recalls the summer, years later, when the two brothers made a series of fly-fishing trips accompanied by a troublesome in-law and, on one occasion, by their now-elderly father. The Montana setting is brilliantly evoked, and fly-fishing serves as an excellent metaphor for life, family, and the relationship between Maclean and his tragic, hard-drinking brother in this wise and unforgettable story. A former university professor, Maclean recorded these stories at the urging of his children. No mainstream publisher was interested, but the University of Chicago Press issued the book as its first work of fiction. The book enjoyed great success and was a frontrunner for the Pulitzer Prize in letters, although, according to reports, the Pulitzer board rejected it because they felt it was a memoir, not fiction. A movie directed by Robert Redford, starring Brad Pitt, also helped attract readers to this title, much beloved by both adolescents and adults.
NORMA FOX MAZER
Dear Bill, Remember Me? and Other Stories
12–14 • Delacorte • 1976 • 195 pp.
Romance, family relationships, and the quest for independence and identity are the themes of these eight stories about teenage girls. Norma Fox Mazer's collection is written in a variety of narrative styles, with some tales related in the first person, others from an omniscient perspective, one written in the form of journal entries, and another as a series of unsent letters. The plots and characterizations are equally wide-ranging, though Mazer especially excels at exploring the lives of working-class characters: sheltered Zoe makes a new friend during secret visits to a neighborhood park; Chrissy shares a trailer home with her father and uncle. Readers will identify with Mazer's protagonists as they experience change and personal growth.
WALTER DEAN MYERS
145th Street: Short Stories
12–14 • Delacorte • 2000 • 151 pp.
Walter Dean Myers, who grew up in Harlem, returns to his roots in this collection of ten stories set in the neighborhood surrounding 145th Street. Each of the lean, engaging tales introduces intriguing characters: an old man who plans and attends his own funeral; a Hispanic girl who may be experiencing a series of prophetic dreams; an elderly African-American woman who shares her Christmas with a Caucasian policeman and his family; and a studious girl and a jock who fall in love and stay in love against all odds. Vibrant characterizations, an authentic setting, and a strong sense of community distinguish this collection. Though several of the stories realistically—and sometimes grimly—concern crime and gang violence, the general tone is optimistic and spirited. Harlem and 145th Street have been depicted without adulation but with great affection.
JOYCE CAROL OATES
Small Avalanches and Other Stories
14–18 • Harper • 2003 • 400 pp.
Besides being one of today's most honored novelists, Joyce Carol Oates is considered a master of the short story form. This volume collects twelve tales that have a special resonance for young adults. Two of the entries, "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" (the basis of the Laura Dern and Treat Williams film, Smooth Talk) and "How I Contemplated the World from the Detroit House of Corrections and Began My Life Over Again," are among the author's best-known and critically acclaimed short stories. The others, psychologically harrowing, often violent, and unrelievedly grim, are vintage Oates. Though not for every reader, this mature and thought-provoking collection serves as a solid introduction to this major American author and can lead young readers to seek out some of her adult novels that have particular teen appeal— Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang, Them, and We Were the Mulvaneys.
TIM O'BRIEN
The Things They Carried
14–18 • Houghton Mifflin • 1990 • 272 pp.
Tim O'Brien, who was drafted into the military after graduating from college in 1968, has crafted a harrowing, highly personal collection of short fiction based on his own experiences in Vietnam. Gripping vignettes recall the fears, casual cruelty, and madness of young men during wartime. O'Brien graphically describes the deaths of several members of his platoon, repeats a stunning story of a medic's girlfriend who reportedly joined him in country, and tells the haunting tale of the man he killed. These narratives are occasionally interrupted by sections in which O'Brien looks back at the war from a distance of twenty years, providing additional background information on his experiences, updating the lives of the servicemen introduced in the stories, and sometimes even refuting the events that he has just presented in fictional form. This gripping, multilayered volume can be read on many different levels. While young readers may not quite comprehend the implications of the forty-three-year-old author's recalling and rewriting scenes from his past, they will surely relate to the honestly portrayed emotions and actions of O'Brien's fellow soldiers, many of whom were still in their own late teens while serving in Vietnam.
RICHARD PECK
Past Perfect, Present Tense: New and Collected Stories
12–14 • Dial • 2004 • 177 pp.
Throughout his career as an award-winning novelist, Richard Peck has demonstrated a knack for creating pithy short stories for anthologies. In this book he collects a baker's dozen, categorizing them into sections labeled The First, The Past, Supernatural, and The Present. What makes this collection notable, besides the general high quality of the prose, is that Peck provides an author's perspective on how each of the stories came to be written. His best-known story came into existence mainly because an editor promised him $300; others are based on places the author has visited or events he has experienced; still others introduce characters that later found their way into his novels. Peck's dry commentary—which includes a brief afterword, "How to Write a Short Story," followed by a few helpful hints—gives this collection a personal touch and may inspire fledgling authors.
HAZEL ROCHMAN, EDITOR
Somehow Tenderness Survives: Stories of Southern Africa
12–14 • Harper • 1988 • 147 pp.
Hazel Rochman, who was born and raised in Johannesburg, South Africa, introduces this collection with an incisive portrait of life under apartheid, followed by ten stories—five by black authors and five by white—that illustrate the grim, soul-crushing impact of institutionalized racism. Doris Lessing describes a white girl's encounters with an African chief. Nadine Gordimer tells of an ill-fated interracial romance. Peter Abrahams and Mark Mathabane contribute autobiographical accounts of police brutality. Though sometimes graphically violent, the stories demonstrate that, even under the worst regimes, somehow tenderness, human dignity, and even hope can survive. This volume was originally published when apartheid was the law in South Africa. Though times have changed, it still deserves attention—much like Holocaust literature—to remind readers of the political horrors that existed in the not-too-distant past and that still cast their shadow on twenty-first-century Africa.
J. D. SALINGER
Nine Stories
14–18 • Little, Brown • 1953 • 208 pp.
Fans of The Catcher in the Rye, drawn to this book by J. D. Salinger's name, will discover a volume substantially different from that landmark young adult novel. Most of these subtle tales were originally published in The New Yorker and reflect the postwar malaise of the late 1940s and early 1950s. Readers lulled by the stories' everyday events and innocuous conversations will be startled by the emotional landmines just below each placid surface, such as when the fancifully titled "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" and "Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut" unravel into dark tales of suicide and alcoholism. A number of stories speak directly to the young adult experience: a private school student has an unsettling encounter with her classmate's brother in "Just Before the War with the Eskimos"; a young soldier meets an odd British girl in "For Esmé—with Love and Squalor"; a nineteen-year-old lies his way into a job as an art teacher in "De Daumier-Smith's Blue Period." Though not as accessible to young readers as The Catcher in the Rye, these urbane, edgy stories will intrigue and disturb sophisticated teenagers.
Lord of the Fries and Other Stories
12–14 • DK/Kroupa • 1999 • 214 pp.
Called the "master of the glimpse," Tim Wynne-Jones in his third collection of stories presents seven tales of striking originality. With his corkscrew logic and sublime turns of phrases, each story immediately grabs the reader's attention from the first sentence. In "The Fallen Angel," the mysterious Luc, with a voice like an angel, turns satanic. And in one of the finest stories, "The Bermuda Triangle," a young boy, Jim, who turned mute when his father disappeared, finds his own voice.
Lord of the Fries and Other Stories quickly reveals why this Canadian author is considered one of the contemporary masters of the short story—someone who writes original, fresh, and vibrant tales, with an emotional twist at the end.