Juvenile short story anthology
If you're a fan of multiple author short story anthologies created around a central location and cast you are going to love You Are Here Connecting Flights edited by Ellen Oh.
The setting is a busy airport. People are briskly coming and going...
...until a humongous storm kicks up outside, delaying and canceling many flights. As the airport gets more and more crowded just about anything that can go wrong does. Tempers flare. Interactions between strangers become intense.
There is an important underlying theme. The authors are part of the richly diverse Asian American population as are the characters who undergo experiences of their creators. Adults and children spew hateful words. Even a lot of well meaning people are needlessly clueless. Kids have a learning opportunity embedded in an engaging plot.
Kids who like individual author's stories can find out what else they have written in the biographies in the back.
Creating a book with overlapping characters required a lot of teamwork by phone calls, emails, and zooms. Oh really enjoyed the zooms. She just wishes she'd had the space to include more authors and perspectives.
Oh ends her editor's note with:
"Thank you for joining us on this journey through twelve different looks at the Asian American experience. For some of you, the events represented here will come as an eye-opening surprise, while others of you will recognize elements of your own lives in these pages. But at the core of this book is a reminder that Asian Americans are Americans, too. We belong here. We are part of the fabric of this country that we love dearly, and this book is both an affirmation and a celebration of who we are."
On a purrrsonal note, I had a great weekend. Eugene and I went to camp. Eugene has a best friend named Richard Brown who has a camp just down the road. They were besties when I met Eugene 36 years ago. Gotta respect that. These days they hardly ever get a chance to meet up. Richard and his wife Karen were at their camp. We spent much of Saturday with them, culminating in a bonfire. The last time we'd all been around a bonfire had been in the first year of the pandemic when we had no idea what the future would bring. Sunday on the way home we stopped at a store to buy groceries. I decided I'd better start looking for the piece I needed to complete my first day of Leah's class outfit. With only two weeks I wasn't sure I'd find it. It took me five minutes. (Jules)
Late in the afternoon we started getting thunder and lighting. Then there was pouring rain 🌧 . Mother Nature put on quite a show. (Tobago)
A great big shout out goes to Richard and Karen Brown. Good people.
Tobago and Jules Hathaway
Sent from my U.S.Cellular© Smartphone
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