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SHELF LIFE by Gary Paulsen

SHELF LIFE

Stories by the Book

edited by Gary Paulsen

Pub Date: Aug. 1st, 2003
ISBN: 0-689-84180-9
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

The ten original stories—prefaced by Paulsen’s cogent memoir—in this pro-bono gathering offer universal themes in a variety of settings. The authors were asked only to include references to books or reading. The results: a jokester tries, with devastating consequences, to fake a book report in Ellen Conford’s “In Your Hat”; playacting inspired by Alice McLerran’s Roxaboxen helps to heal a feud in Ellen Wittlinger’s “Wet Hens”; Marion Dane Bauer compares an assigned “Good Deed” to a voluntary one; Jennifer L. Holm’s “Follow the Water” features an unwilling young emigrant—to Mars. Older readers will respond to M.T. Anderson’s weird and eerie nautical episode, and Gregory Maguire’s tongue-in-cheek encounter between society snobs and a decidedly non-average child. Paulsen’s proceeds, plus a percentage from the publisher, will go to ProLiteracy Worldwide; the stodgy intro by that organization’s president is the only clinker here. (Short stories. 11-15)