Edited by Lamar Giles
Synopsis:
In partnership with We Need Diverse Books, thirteen of the most recognizable, diverse authors come together in this remarkable YA anthology featuring ten short stories, a graphic short story, and a one-act play from Walter Dean Myers never before in-print.
Careful--you are holding fresh ink. And not hot-off-the-press, still-drying-in-your-hands ink. Instead, you are holding twelve stories with endings that are still being written--whose next chapters are up to you.
Because these stories are meant to be read. And shared.
Thirteen of the most accomplished YA authors deliver a label-defying anthology that includes ten short stories, a graphic novel, and a one-act play. This collection will inspire you to break conventions, bend the rules, and color outside the lines. All you need is fresh ink.
Publisher: Crown Books for Young Readers
Publication date: August 14th 2018
Source/Format: eARC/Netgalley
Purchase links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository
My Overall Rating: ★★★★☆
My Thoughts:
- Eraser Tattoo
- by Jason Reynolds
- A bittersweet scene between bestfriend-turned-sweethearts, Shay and Dante, is captured with light and funny moments dashed by the uncertainty of their relationship in the future.
- Rating: 4/5 Diversity Watch: Shay and Dante are black
- Meet Cute
- by Malinda Lo
- Literally a fluffy meet cute between two gender-flipping and race-bending cosplayers in a Comic Con.
- Rating: 5/5 Diversity Watch: Tamia is Asian, Nic is black, gender-queer
- Don’t Pass Me
- by By Eric Gansworth
- A really strong statement about a Native Indian owning up to his skin color. Fave quote: “I was beginning to understand how easy it was to be silent, to think yourself as a vanished Indian. Everywhere you looked, you weren’t there.”
- Rating: 4/5 Diversity Watch: Hubert “Doobie” Buckman is a Native Indian
- Be Cool for Once
- by Aminah Mae Safi
- This has an adorable push and pull feels as a girl plays it cool in front of the boy she is madly crushing on.
- Rating: 5/5 Diversity Watch: Shirin is Muslim, Jeffrey Tanaka is Japanese-American
- Tags
- by Walter Dean Myers
- A one-act play about black boys who died young, trapped in an endless task of tagging the walls with their street names so they would not be forgotten by the living.
- Rating: 4/5 Diversity Watch: All the characters are black.
- Why I Learned to Cook
- by Sara Farizan
- Such a clever way to use food as way for the character Yasi to introduce her girlfriend, Hannah, in the family’s culture. And the whole process of learning how to cook lead to Yasi’s discovery of how cool her grandma is about her sexuality. The lesson? “Don’t ever apologize for who you are.” But honestly after reading this, I just want my own table spread of Persian food to dig in.
- Rating: 4/5 Diversity Watch: Yasi is Iranian and gay.
- A Stranger at the Bochinche
- by Daniel José Older
- This has speculative elements that I did not quite identify with.
- Rating: 3/5 Diversity Watch: Latinx characters
- A Boy’s Duty
- by Sharon G. Flake
- A depiction of how a young mural artist’s talent is wasted during World War 2.
- Rating: 3/5 Diversity Watch: The boy is black.
- One Voice: A Something in Between Story
- by Melissa de la Cruz
- The story puts two lenses on how to look into a pejorative graffiti: one is that it’s just a harmless trivial prank and the other is that it’s a valid source of fear. It aptly shows how the fear of the main character builds up to frustration and then to anger, culminating to an act of reclaiming the negative space the graffiti tried to inhabit.
- Rating: 4/5 Diversity Watch: The protagonist is Filipina.
- Paladin/Samurai
- by Gene Luen Yan
- Illustrations by Thien Pam
- A graphic short story of nerdy kid standing up to a bully who called the nerdy kid’s friend “kimchi”. I like me some underdog hero story but there’s nothing new to this one and the illustrations are poorly drawn in such that I can’t clearly recognize one character from the other.
- Rating: 2/5 Diversity Watch: Japanese-American characters
- Catch, Pull, Drive
- by Schuyler Bailar
- A really intense, heart-racing practice day after a young transgender swimmer puts up a coming out post in Facebook.
- Rating: 4/5 Diversity Watch: The protagonist is a transgender boy
- Super Human
- by Nicola Yoon
- What if the Man of Steel is a young black man? A conversation.
- Rating: 5/5 Diversity Watch: The protagonist is black.
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I'd love to hear from you!
Have you read this anthology yet? If yes, which stories were your favorite/s? If not yet, would you pick it up in the future? Which YA anthologies would you recommend me to check out?
Have you read this anthology yet? If yes, which stories were your favorite/s? If not yet, would you pick it up in the future? Which YA anthologies would you recommend me to check out?
