Synopses & Reviews
In this brand-new collection of short stories, Aidan Chambers explores moments of truth, when a character or an event suddenly reveals an often-surprising meaning: A girl loses her humanity when she takes a summer job as a theme-park character; a boy tries to save a girl from a fiery death, only to discover the same event happened one hundred years before. And the titular story, in which an innocent game takes a fatal turn, will haunt the reader for a long time.
These provocative stories beautifully lend themselves to discussion, and once again Chambers treats us to his fiercely intelligent, finely crafted prose and his incisive understanding of the wonderings of young people on the verge of adulthood.
Awards and praise for the work of Aidan Chambers
Michael L. Printz Award
Carnegie Medal
Hans Christian Andersen Award
“Beautifully written, emotionally touching, and intellectually challenging.” —VOYA
“Jam-packed with ideas and passionate characters.” —Publishers Weekly
“A marvelous wordsmith and magical storyteller.” —ALAN Review
“Disturbing, groundbreaking . . . original.” —Books for Keeps
Praise for The Kissing Game
“His [Chambers] sophisticated yet simple style is perfectly suited for an exploration of the new form of flash fictions—multi-genre drabbles that top out at 1,000 words—as well as standard short-story form. Thoughtful, challenging reading for teens on the cusp of adulthood.” -Kirkus Reviews
“more meaningful discussion and deeper understanding will only come from teens with more life experience, and theres real potential for possible use in high school English classes.” -School Library Journal
“Models for flash fiction and the short-story form as well as points of departure for challenging open-ended discussion, the stories in this collection lend themselves to multiple curricular uses as well as thoughtful personal reading.” -Bulletin of the Center for Childrens Books
Review
"This compilation of intricate, transfixing selections succeeds in making the weird wonderful and the grotesque absolutely gorgeous." School Library Journal
Review
"Link defies expectations with such terrific turnarounds that you are left precipitously wondering not only What's going to happen now? but also Wait, what just happened?" Booklist (Starred Review)
Review
"Weirdly wonderful and a touch macabre....The humor is dry and the characters are easy to relate to, even in alien (literally and figuratively) settings." Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)
Synopsis
Kelly Link has lit up adult literary publishing — and Viking is honored to publish her first YA story collection. Through the lens of Link's vivid imagination, nothing is what it seems, and everything deserves a second look.
From the multiple award-winning "The Faery Handbag," in which a teenager's grandmother carries an entire village (or is it a man-eating dog?) in her handbag, to the near-future of "The Surfer," whose narrator (a soccer-playing skeptic) waits with a planeload of refugees for the aliens to arrive, Link's stories are funny and full of unexpected insights and skewed perspectives on the world. Her fans range from Michael Chabon to Peter Buck of R.E.M. to Holly Black of The Spiderwick Chronicles fame. Now teens can have their world rocked, too!
Synopsis
Through the lens of Link's vivid imagination, nothing is what it seems, and everything deserves a second look. Now, in her first YA story collection, Link delivers stories that are funny and full of unexpected insights and skewed perspectives on the world. Illustrations.
Synopsis
In this provocative collection of short stories, Aidan Chambers explores moments of truth, when a character or an event suddenly reveals an often surprising meaning: a girl loses her humanity when she takes a summer job as a theme-park character; a boy tries to save a girl from a fiery death, only to discover the same event happened one hundred years before. And the titular story, in which an innocent game takes a fatal turn, will haunt the reader for a long time.
These thought-provoking stories lend themselves beautifully to discussion, and once again Chambers treats us to his fiercely intelligent, finely crafted prose and incisive understanding of the wonderings of young people on the verge of adulthood.
Synopsis
Kelly Link has lit up adult literary publishing?and Viking is honored to publish her first YA story collection. Through the lens of Link?s vivid imagination, nothing is what it seems, and everything deserves a second look. From the multiple award-winning ?The Faery Handbag,? in which a teenager?s grandmother carries an entire village (or is it a man-eating dog?) in her handbag, to the near-future of ?The Surfer,? whose narrator (a soccer-playing skeptic) waits with a planeload of refugees for the aliens to arrive, Link?s stories are funny and full of unexpected insights and skewed perspectives on the world. Her fans range from Michael Chabon to Peter Buck of R.E.M. to Holly Black of
Spiderwick Chronicles fame. Now teens can have their world rocked, too!
About the Author
Kelly Link (www.kellylink.net) lives in Northampton, Massachusetts, where she and her husband, Gavin J. Grant, run Small Beer Press and publish the zine
Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet.
Shaun Tan is the creator of the New York Times bestseller The Arrival. He lives in Australia.