The Color of Absence: 12 Stories about Loss and Hope

. Atheneum Books, $16 (238pp) ISBN 978-0-689-82862-1

Two short story collections address the emotional life of adolescents. The author of the Bunnicula books, James Howe, collects a dozen works (one of which he penned himself) in The Color of Absence: 12 Stories About Loss and Hope. Walter Dean Myers's ""Season's End"" covers much more than the close of baseball season; in ""Shoofly Pie,"" Naomi Shihab Nye explores the way humor and sadness live side by side; and Jacqueline Woodson and Chris Lynch collaborate on ""The Rialto,"" excerpted from a forthcoming novel. (July)

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