SUCH A PRETTY FACE

Combining contributions from established veterans and newcomers, this appealing anthology, with its baker’s dozen of stories about beauty—a topic often on the minds of youth—offers a broad perspective. While some of the tales have thematic and plot similarities (there’s a couple, for instance, in which girls use their looks to separate from their mothers), it boasts depth and range. Tim Wynne Jones’s literary narrative about a physically small yet brilliant teen’s heart-wrenching encounter with a suicidal beauty is a standout. Chris Lynch presents another gem that features a confident blend of humor and pathos as a boy flirts with the unseen nurse who cares for him after he breaks his back. There’s a striking juxtaposition between Lauren Myracle’s hilarious tall tale about a homecoming queen’s chin hair that grows to Rapunzel-like proportions, and Louise Hawes’s raw, tender chronicle about a 12-year-old who views a forbidden freak show in the 1950s. Authors’ biographies and discussion questions are appended. (Fiction. YA)