Black Juice

Lanagan, Margo

ISBN 10: 0060743913 ISBN 13: 9780060743918

Publisher: HarperTeen, 2005

Synopsis

Provides glimpses of the dark side of civilization and the beauty of the human spirit through ten short stories that explore significant moments in people's lives, events leading to them, and their consequences.

About this title

About the Author:

Margo Lanagan has worked as a kitchen hand and encyclopedia seller, and spent ten years as a freelance book editor. She is now a technical writer as well as a creative one. Ms. Lanagan's critically acclaimed North American debut, Black Juice, is a Michael L. Printz Honor Book and won two World Fantasy Awards. Black Juice also received the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards Prize for Young Adult Fiction, a Golden Aurealis Award for Best Young Adult Short Story, and a Bram Stoker Award nomination from the Horror Writers of America. The author lives in Sydney, Australia, with her partner and their two sons.

From School Library Journal:

Starred Review. Grade 9 Up–Every selection in this rich collection is strange and startling, a glimpse into weird, wondrous, and sometimes terrifying worlds. "Singing My Sister Down," "House of the Many," and "Earthly Uses" use the death of a character to illustrate the trajectory that grief gives to those who surround those characters. In "Sweet Pippit," a group of elephants break from captivity to rescue the one human who can lead and love them. "Wooden Bride" centers on Matty Weir and her decision to change herself forever by participating in her town's anonymous group marriage ceremony, providing a sly, unconventional commentary on today's consumer-heavy wedding culture. "Red Nose Day" provides a glimpse into the hearts of two assassins who are killing clowns. "Yowlinin" is a story of ostracism and disaster; an outcast girl warns of a plague but is unheeded, with catastrophic results. The 10 stories all hover near a 20-page range. Lanagan uses beautiful, lyrical language to tell peculiar, disturbing tales. This collection may need some introduction, and would work especially well in a classroom setting; it is full of teachable moments. The selections are subtle and scary, and are remarkably different from most short stories aimed at teens. This book will satisfy readers hungry for intelligent, literary fantasies that effectively twist facets of our everyday world into something alien.–Sarah Couri, New York Public Library

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperTeen
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0060743913
• ISBN 13: 9780060743918
• Binding: Library Binding
• Number of pages: 208