Authors: James Howe
ISBN-13: 9781416926849, ISBN-10: 1416926844
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
Date Published: September 2006
Edition: (Non-applicable)
James Howe is the author of more than seventy books for young readers, including the popular and award-winning series about Bunnicula and his friends. Among his other books are the Pinky and Rex series, the Sebastian Barth mysteries, and The Misfits and Totally Joe, which inspired the nation-wide initiative for No Name-Calling Week. He lives in New York.
"If thirteen is supposed to be an unlucky number...you would think a civilized society could come up with a way for us to skip it."
-- from "What's the Worst That Could Happen?" by Bruce Coville
No one will want to skip any of the twelve short stories and one poem that make up this collection by some of the most celebrated contemporary writers of teen fiction. The big bar mitzvah that goes suddenly, wildly, hilariously out of control. A first kiss -- and a realization about one's sexual orientation. A crush on a girl that ends up putting the boy who likes her in the hospital. A pair of sneakers a kid has to have. By turns funny and sad, wrenching and poignant, the moments large and small described in these stories capture perfectly the agony and ecstasy of being thirteen.
The authors of these 13 original entries (12 stories and one poem) have one thing in common: each understands what it is like to stand in that murky bog between childhood and adulthood. Their writings, all of which feature a 13-year-old protagonist, poignantly and often humorously capture the excitement, angst and uncertainty that mark the experience of growing up. Lori Aurelia Williams's impoverished and taunted hero Malik considers joining a reputedly violent gang because they will give him the high-status shoes he covets; and Ellen Wittlinger's heroine, Maggie, a budding writer, tries out a new identity under a pen name. Others tentatively test the waters of romance or plunge into infatuations. For example, Murphy Murphy ("Yeah, you read it right.... It's like a family curse," he says of his name), the blinded-by-love star of Bruce Coville's "What's the Worst That Could Happen?" agrees to act in a skit despite his terrible stage fright, in order to impress his beloved Tiffany; several embarrassments, one Heimlich maneuver and an accident later, he lands in the hospital with a broken leg. Howe (who previously edited The Color of Absence: 12 Stories About Loss and Hope) orchestrates a lively assortment of voices; what readers may enjoy most, however, are the authors' comments on their own adolescences-accompanied by photos of themselves at age 13. Ages 12-up. (Oct.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Introduction | 1 | |
What's the Worst That Could Happen? | 7 | |
Kate the Great | 29 | |
If You Kiss a Boy | 49 | |
Thirteen and a Half | 75 | |
Jeremy Goldblatt Is So Not Moses | 89 | |
Black Holes and Basketball Sneakers | 115 | |
Picky Eater | 161 | |
Such Foolishness | 181 | |
Noodle Soup for Nincompoops | 187 | |
Squid Girl | 213 | |
Angel & Aly | 229 | |
Nobody Stole Jason Grayson | 251 | |
Tina the Teen Fairy | 267 |