A collection of eclectic short stories by contemporary YA authors that address the theme of being trapped, literally or metaphorically. The resulting dozen tales are as varied as the contributors, ranging from David Skinner’s modern fairy tale about a princess frozen in a block of ice to Gary Crew’s eerie glimpse of a Vietnam veteran trapped within his own mind. Marc Talbert’s characters are physically trapped by a forest fire, then morally trapped when they realize they are responsible for the blaze. Should they tell? Walter Dean Myers’s contribution appears in two columns on the page, one recounting a young man’s conversation with his psychiatrist, the other revealing a very different narrative inside his mind. Francesca Lia Block explores the trap of anorexia and Rita Williams-Garcia pens a short play about a drive-by shooting. On the lighter side, Joan Bauer’s heroine, a perfectionist-waitress, comes unraveled trying to satisfy a Sunday morning crowd of pancake eaters all by herself. At the height of the frenzy she stands on a counter and shouts, “We’re out of sausage and it’s not my fault!” Although the theme provokes occasional forced or heavy-handed moments, this is a strong collection, thought-provoking and well worth reading. (Short stories. 12-14)
Pub Date: July 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-689-81335-X
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1998
Baz is an excellent thief. She has been since the beginning, when Demi found her as a tiny child and she came to live with him in Fay’s den of child crooks in an (perhaps frustratingly) unspecified urban slum. No one is as good at picking pockets as the innocent-looking team of Baz and Demi, and they’re content to be Fay’s favorite children. When Demi steals a glittering ring from an uptown lady, they fall into a lengthy chain of betrayal and corruption. Spies within their own gang are the least of their problems; the ring belonged to the chief of police’s wife, and both the police and the mob are after them. Trusting anyone is dangerous, but Baz doesn’t want to end up like Fay and Demi, who trust no one. Lavish details of the hellish environment, from mud flats that drown the unwary to the festering garbage mountain on which enslaved children pick trash for the mob, derail the adventure’s forward momentum, slowing it to a crawl. What ought to be a thrilling chase drags, despite the charming, streetwise heroine. (Fiction. 12-13)
Pub Date: April 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-312-56330-1
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Chelsea Green
Review Posted Online: April 22, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2010
A girl’s interest in family history overlaps a coming-of-age story about her vestigial understanding of her mother after death, and her own awareness of self and place in the world. Junior high-school student Carrie Schmidt identifies strongly with the missing girls of 1967’s headlines about runaways. Carrie’s mother is dead and she has just moved in with her grandmother, Mutti, who embarrasses her with her foreign accent and ways. Carrie’s ideal is her friend Mona’s mother, a “professional” who dresses properly, smells good, and knows how to set out a table; readers will grasp the mother’s superficiality, even though Carrie, at first, does not. Mutti has terror in her past, and tells Carrie stories of the Jews in WWII Vienna, and of subsequent events in nine concentration camps; these are mined under the premise that Carrie needs stories for “dream” material and her interest in so-called lucid dreaming, a diverting backdrop that deepens the story without overwhelming it. Mutti’s gripping, terrible tales and the return of an old friend who raised Carrie’s mother when she was sent to Scotland at age nine awaken in Carrie a connection to her current family, to her ancestry, and, ultimately, to a stronger sense of self. This uncommon novel from Metzger (Ellen’s Case, 1995, etc.) steps out of the genre of historical fiction to tell a story as significant to contemporary readers as to the inhabitants of the era it evokes. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-670-87777-8
Page Count: 194
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1999
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