Reading Rants! Out of the Ordinary Teen Booklists!

This third installment of Aussie author Margo Lanagan’s short story collections is just as bizarre and mind-bending as her previous two. My favorites include “A Good Heart,” about a medieval peasant boy who discovers that the girl he loves, a lady above his station, is harboring a dark secret, and “Under Hell, Over Heaven,” which takes place in Purgatory, where some souls try to earn their way into Heaven by forcibly transporting other unfortunate souls to Hell. “Winkie,” in which Lanagan reinterprets the benign Wee Willie Winkie from Mother Goose into a tall, scrawny, child-snatching bogeyman gave me the heebie jeebies, which were soothed away by “A Feather in the Breast of God,” a sweet story that suggests sometimes our pets come back to watch over us after death. Another thing I appreciate about Lanagan’s books is that she always includes notes at the end that let readers know where the inspiration for her weird, wonderful stories comes from. I loved the shout-out she gave to fellow Aussie Garth Nix when she wrote that the title of her last story, “Daughter of the Clay” came from reading about the Clayr in his Abhorson trilogy. If you want to take a short trip to a strange place, then these stories are just the ticket. Don’t forget to go back and check out her first two books, Black Juice (a Printz-honor title) and White Time.

In Deborah Noyes’ latest horror anthology, the dead not only won’t stay put, they’re hanging out at dance clubs and visiting the local 7-11! Noyes, whose first collection Gothic!: Ten Original Dark Tales knocked my socks off, has assembled another winner with The Restless Dead. Marcus Sedgewick tells a story of a transplanted heart that takes over its’ new owner’s body in “The Heart of Another,” while Annette Curtis Klause shares what it’s like to infiltrate a trendy vampire nest in “Kissing Dead Boys.” Chris Wooding’s traditional Victorian ghost story will keep you guessing until the last line, while Herbie Brennan’s unexpectedly funny story about a greedy old grandpa who refuses to go back to his grave will have you laughing even as you suppress a shiver. Libba Bray, Holly Black, and Nancy Etchemendy also all penned chilling shorts that gave me the heebie jeebies, but I have to say my favorite was M.T. Anderson’s “The Gray Boy’s Work,” a strange historical fiction about the horror that comes home with a Revolutionary War soldier who deserted his post. Give yourself some goose bumps in the middle of summer, or anytime of year with this gorgeously ghoulish collection!

My teenage compadres, I have finally read something that has left me…speechless. These 10 short stories by Margo Lanagan are breathtakingly indescribable. Using elements of science fiction, fantasy, and horror, Lanagan drops the unprepared reader into 10 wholly original worlds, where first you flounder and flap…and then you swim. Into places and people you couldn’t even begin to imagine—like a tar pit where justice is sung as you sink to your death, a lonely rural ridge where carnivorous red dragon angels grant wishes, and a tribal village where a broken accordion speaks to gods. And that’s just a sampling of the amazing dimensions you will experience when you crack open this brilliant, disturbing, too wonderful for words short story collection.

This series of stories by YA literature godfather Richard Peck highlight the very best of his short story career. Arranged into simply named sections called “The First,” “The Past,” “The Supernatural,” and finally “The Present” Peck gives teen readers a look at what goes into crafting the heart and soul of a short story. Besides providing examples of his work, each section starts with a short explanation by Peck about who or what inspired the story or how it came to be written. But best of all is the writerly advice contained in the last two sections: How to Write a Short Story, and Five Helpful Hints, which include my two favorite adages, NOBODY BUT A READER EVER BECAME A WRITER, and THE ONLY WRITING IS REWRITING. Using a very few perfectly chosen words, Peck boils down the very essence of how to write a story. Teen writers will welcome his stripped down advice, as it will keep them from becoming overwhelmed by the empty monitor screen. All of his selected stories are such gems of the genre that it will certainly inspire young authors to follow his sage advice.

If I said, “Sarah Dessen,” could I make you pause? What about “Jacqueline Woodson, Rich Wallace, and Ellen Wittlinger?” Would you stop to see what all these fabulous YA authors (and many more too numerous to mention in this short space) were doing in one collection? What if I said all of these cool shorts were about DESIRE in all its forms: sexual, identity, wanting to belong, wanting to connect, just WANTING? Would you stop for one hot second and see what all the heavy breathing was about? I’m thinking you might for a collection full of funny, smart, serious and true short stories about all the different people, privileges, feelings and connections that we long for as teenagers. There, made ya look!

Who hasn’t wanted to see into the future, even if it was just a little peek? Editor Michael Cart asked 10 well known YA writers to pen their versions of the future and they came up with some pretty funky results. Katherine Paterson created a future where humans have made their homes in sealed domes and no longer know the meanings of words like “hot” or “loneliness” except through virtual reality lessons. Jacqueline Woodson writes about how one girl, born out of a sperm donor deposit, is searching for both her father and her future. And Rodman Philbrick gives us a taste of his longer futuristic novel, The Last Book in the Universe, by describing a future where violence and brutality rule, and hope comes in the form of the written word. And those are just a few of the space age stories from this eclectic volume. Cool tattooed cover, too. Make sure you bring this one along on your latest mission to Mars.