cover image Thicker Than Water: Coming-Of-Age Stories by Irish & Irish American Writers

Thicker Than Water: Coming-Of-Age Stories by Irish & Irish American Writers

. Delacorte Press Books for Young Readers, $17.95 (256pp) ISBN 978-0-385-32571-4

A dozen tales cover a gamut of emotions in Thicker Than Water: Coming-of-Age Stories by Irish and Irish American Writers, ed. by Gordon Snell, from Vincent Banville's ""One Day When We Were Young,"" which captures a 13-year-old boy's awakening sexual attraction in 1955 Ireland, to a cheeky teen's account of her mother's remarriage in the titular short story by Emma Donoghue, to Chris Lynch's ""Off Ya Go, So,"" a bittersweet tale of the end of innocence for a Bostonian teen on holiday in Ireland and for the young woman with whom he falls in love. ( Feb.)