NECESSARY NOISE: Stories About Our Families as They Really Are

Each of the 11 original stories in this eclectic collection redefines the notion of family in 21st-century terms. Because premises, plots and writing styles vary tremendously, not all selections will hit home with all readers, but nearly everyone will be able to find someone familiar in the montage of colorful parents, siblings, aunts and uncles here. Facing the most unconventional end of the spectrum may be Rita Williams-Garcia's protagonist, Jason, who struggles to adjust to his parents' divorce and his mother's new lesbian partner. Walter Dean Myers's nameless father and son meet for the first time in 20 years—just before the son, now an inmate, is scheduled to be executed. Other selections, like Norma Howe's "Siskiyou Sloan and the Eye of the Giraffe" and Sonya Sones's story in verse, "Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde," focus on the more universal theme of sibling rivalry. Lois Lowry, Nikki Grimes and Joan Bauer are among the other authors represented. As with his previous collections (Love and Sex; Tomorrowland), Cart (who also contributes a selection) does a superior job arranging the narratives. Lighthearted pieces bookend grimmer tales, and the dramatic intensity smoothly rises and falls as the book progresses. Although some works strain to fit an up-to-date mold, this volume, as a whole, offers an honest, fair representation of families in and out of the mainstream. Ages 12-up. (June)