White Time
Grade 8 Up&ndash;This esoteric short-story collection celebrates creative and expressive literature in a big, broad way. Lanagan's themes range from reckoning to healing, and her conflicts tackle eating disorders, terrorists, and self-empowerment. One heartening story, Big Rage, is a modern-day social take on Beauty and the Beast. At once romantic and tragic, filled with rough-and-tumble jousting scenes, it is the story of a woman whose control-freak husband continually overshadows her, and she is broken by his opinion of who, and what, she is. When she stumbles upon a wounded man on a beach, she takes a risk and helps save him. Slowly, she begins to heal. Nested within the artful prose and riveting action of these stories is writing that challenges readers with fantastical and emotional dexterity. Here are intricate styles, genres, and examples of the lengths an author can go to raise storytelling to personal, profound, and mysterious heights. The selections are not simple to navigate through, but if given the concentration they deserve, they reveal an unfettered sensitivity, intelligence, and humanistic conscience.&ndash;Alison Follos, North Country School, Lake Placid, NYCopyright &copy; Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.