TABLE OF EVERYTHING

In a hard-to-categorize debut, Australian White lets her imagination run free with 17 short first-person . . . well, pieces, for lack of a more specific term: one introduces a friend who adds a wing to her house for her pencil collection; another pictures memory as a labyrinthine archive run by scurrying sugar ants; in another, she presents the sounds on her street as a “Concerto For Autumn” (“Section two is punctuated by sudden door slams—house and car . . .”), then describes the “concerto’s” CD cover. Here, an open-hearted couple restores a “Very Slow Train” to service, with mixed success; there, the narrator hears a cat reciting Andrew Marvell (“Poetry Ambush”), or explores the “Topography of Wishes” in the mountain of discarded intentions that fills her back yard. Smudgy black-and-white paintings and smaller ink sketches add a casual air to the collection. Young creative writers and fans of the unconventional will be amused, entertained—and maybe even inspired by—these quirky vignettes. (Short stories. YA)