An ALA Best Book for Young Adults

A Locus Recommended Reading Selection

A New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age

A Selection of the Science Fiction Book Club

Firebirds: An Anthology of Original Fantasy and Science Fiction

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Firebirds gathers together sixteen original stories by some of today's finestwriters of fantasy and science fiction. Together, they have won virtually every major prize— from the National Book Award to the World Fantasy Award to the Newbery Medal—and have made bestseller lists worldwide. These authors, including Lloyd Alexander, Diana Wynne Jones, Garth Nix, Patricia A. McKillip, Meredith Ann Pierce, and Nancy Farmer, tell stories that will entertain, provoke, startle, amuse, and resonate long after the last lage has been turned. And they all share a connection to Firebird—an anthology, devoted to the best fantasy and science fiction for teenage and adult readers.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

This impressive collection showcases an unusual diversity of styles, settings and tone. November, editor of Penguin's Firebird imprint, has chosen wisely: each of these 16 tales has literary merit strong enough to transcend its respective micro-genre (heroic fantasy, fairy tale, magic realism, "feline fantasy," etc.). Highlights are many: Lloyd Alexander eschews his usual epic fantasy setting in "Max Mondrosch," a darkly intriguing quasi-Edwardian nightmare about a man whose job hunt is literally the end of him; Diana Wynne Jones and Garth Nix offer robust tales likely to satisfy their respective legions of fans (Jones in familiar territory, Nix less so); Nancy Farmer, in "Remember Me," relays a bittersweet tale of a girl born into the wrong body and into the wrong family, and her journey back to where she belongs; and the highlight, Megan Whalen Turner's "The Baby in the Night Deposit Box" shares much of the sly morality-play structure of the best Twilight Zone episodes. Uniformly mature and thoughtful, these stories are likely to appeal not only to imaginative children but adults as well. Ages 12-up. (Sept.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal

Gr 7-9-Fifteen-year-old Francesca (Franky) Pierson, middle child of a local Seattle celebrity and his abused artistic wife, recounts her observations of the final dissolution of her parents' marriage. Although Oates gives Franky a credible and engaging voice, the family's descent into turmoil and the revelation of the violence at the heart of the mother's disappearance hold almost no surprising twists. As in Julius Lester's When Dad Killed Mom (Harcourt, 2001), there is some exploration of how an adolescent works through increasingly serious familial problems, reinterprets parental behaviors, and confronts the fact that the childhood home is forever gone. Franky moves slowly from oblivious acceptance of her family as normal through rebuilding her life in the shadow of her mother's murder and her father's incarceration. The pacing allows readers to become fond of her while inviting some impatience with her stubborn adherence to blind faith in everyone but herself for so many chapters. Unfortunately, most of the supporting characters-from Franky's steroid-addled half-brother and her regressing younger sister through her manipulative father and her protective best friend-remain flat, as though assigned singular aspects of the human condition rather than peopling the teen's world with beings as capable of complexity as she discovers herself to be.-Francisca Goldsmith, Berkeley Public Library, CA Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews