It's a Whole Spiel

IT'S A WHOLE SPIEL is edited by Katherine Locke and contains a collection of stories about Jewish teens.  I was excited to see a preview because we are working especially hard this year on representing more diverse voices in our collection. It’s important to note that I did not read all of the stories, but the ones I read seemed to be geared to a younger high school or maybe late middle school audience. I think that is partly because of the rather naïve stance from some characters and because many of the selections deal with belonging and fitting in, a critical issue for less mature teens. IT'S A WHOLE SPIEL does address questions concerning both gender and religious identity and it contains stories by David Levithan, Adi Alsaid, and Nova Ren Suma, along with other YA authors who will be familiar names to students. 

In addition to getting ideas from this short story collection, I would suggest looking at some of the titles which were profiled in a recent (August 2019) VOYA article by Adela Peskorz called “Past and Present Intertwined.” There, she explored Jewish themes and characters from titles like In the Neighborhood of True, Spinning Silver, We Regret to Inform You, and Anne Frank’s Diary: the graphic adaptation.

A People's Future of the United States and The Good Immigrant

A PEOPLE'S FUTURE OF THE UNITED STATES edited by Victor Lavalle and John Joseph Adams contains “Speculative Fiction from 25 Extraordinary Writers.”  And many of the contributors are indeed award winners and easily recognizable for their longer fiction, such as Charlie Jane Anders (All the Birds in the Sky) to Gabby Rivera (Juliet Takes a Breath) to Daniel H. Wilson (The Clockwork Dynasty).   Several of the stories are over 20 pages and they all respond to a prompt asking the writers to explore new forms of freedom, love, and justice in new futures.   

In his “No Algorithms in the World” Hugh Howey, for example, writes about a world with guaranteed personal income and the tension between generations over the definition of work.  It is a society where “data” collection and manipulation can have a stultifying effect: “It’s like the time my wife and I found out we were having a kid because of new food combos she was grabbing out of the pantry and fridge. Our house just up and bought flowers one day to congratulate us.”  The subsequent selection, “Esperanto” by Jamie Ford, explores the concept of beauty – whether machine generated or more natural with all of its imperfections.   

These tales of human-machine interface (inter-dependence?) are eerily similar to societal changes that Kate Klonick reflects upon in “‘Creepy’ Assignment: Pay Attention to What Strangers Reveal in Public” in this week’s New York Times. I wonder what other connections our students would make?  A PEOPLE'S FUTURE OF THE UNITED STATES received starred reviews from both Booklist and Publishers Weekly.

THE GOOD IMMIGRANT, edited by Nikesh Shukla and Chimene Suleyman, is another collection of stories and essays wherein “26 Writers Reflect on America.” The writing is as equally powerful as its striking cover. This is a text which will make readers think.  In particular “How to Write Iranian-American, or The Last Essay” by Porochista Khakpour conjures images and emotions: “It did not take me long to discover that we were all absolutely and mercilessly united by our ambitions to stay afloat on our parents’ dreams – the American Dream. We were, after all, the good immigrants.” 

This collection offers a wide choice of writing styles and experiences related to immigration and since this title was featured recently on NPR, teachers have proactively been asking about it. Our Global Voices students will find this collection especially compelling; they already read Teju Cole (Open City) who is one of the better known contributors here. THE GOOD IMMIGRANT follows a 2016 UK edition; this American version received a starred review from Publishers Weekly.