The Collectors

King (Attack of the Black Rectangles) collaborates with nine other writers—including M.T. Anderson, Anna-Marie McLemore, and Randy Ribay—to ruminate on collections, collectors, and storytelling conventions in this quirky anthology. Not all the showcased assemblages consist of physical things, as evidenced by David Levithan’s humorous “Take It from Me,” which follows a nonbinary teen who amasses items stolen from other people; when they encounter a teen who collects self-doubts, they are confronted with the only grouping they can’t pilfer from. Jason Reynolds’s meandering selection, “A Recording for Carole Before It All Goes,” furthers this notion; employing an introspective narrator to cultivate a recollection of a life lived, this story speaks directly to an aging elder with Alzheimer’s who gathers wigs and names that begin with C. Other entries detail collections meant to remind the reader that they are allowed to take up physical space, as in e.E. Charlton-Trujillo’s biting “La Concha,” in which the protagonist hoards jars containing beach sand, a single piece of their own hair, and “torn-out pages from books my mother read.” King proclaims, in an introduction, that “there is currency in weirdness”; by turns darkly cheeky and piercingly perceptive, this moody and existential grouping of stories lives up to the statement. Concluding author bios highlight the contributors’ own collections. Ages 14–up. (Sept.)