This Is Push: New Stories from the Edge

Grade 8 Up–Fifteen new stories make up this first-class anthology. A handful of pieces showcase characters from past PUSH titles, such as the return of the fabulously kooky Katie James and her hairdresser bombshell mom in Kristen Kemp's hilarious Katie James Beats the Blues. An installment by acclaimed newcomer Coe Booth finds the title character from her breakthrough novel Tyrell (2006) driving to Riker's Island to visit his dad in prison. PUSH vets Brian James and Eireann Corrigan offer new stories inspired by characters from past works. Readers will be left speechless by Chris Wooding's jarring, horrific tale of two godlike beings who, in the guise of teens on a blind date, wreak havoc on a city from the cozy confines of a coffee-shop window, and they will no doubt be haunted by Markus Zusak's captivatingly poetic story of a gravedigger and his crush. Kevin Brooks, in true noir form, contributes the longest offering: a dangerous story of friendship gone to the dogs in a drunken, suburban wasteland. Visionary poet Billy Merrell's play offers a warm glimpse into a romance between two boys. Patricia McCormick spins an evil tale of snarky betrayal inside a cliquey private school. Most of these installments feel fully realized and stand alone; others seem like a hint of what might come later. As a whole, they run the literary gamut from realistic fiction to memoir to romance to mystery to horror, and each one will no doubt be devoured by teens.–Hillias J. Martin, New York Public Library
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Levithan is the founding editor of Scholastic's Push imprint, and in this collection, he groups 15 original stories contributed by Push authors, including well knowns such as Markus Zusak and Patricia McCormick. A few stories veer from realism: Chris Wooding offers a darkly comic fantasy, in which nihilistic, mythological beings spice up a dull first date by terrorizing humans. Most selections, though, find the drama in the concerns of contemporary teens, who confront eating disorders and self-mutilation; complicated, even abusive friendships; the astonishments and tragedies of first love and sex; and the difficulty of growing up with absent or clueless parents. The settings, from the Bronx to a small town in Indiana, are as varied as the characters' cultural identities, and lots of characters speak with graphic, sometimes four-letter frankness. The stories' raw intensity is a unifying thread, and many teens will appreciate these frequently experimental selections that give bold, wild voice to their own tangle of fear, joy, regret, hope, and the changing pictures of who they would like to be. Gillian Engberg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved