Every Man for Himself

Both the publishing world and I seem to have a thing lately for collections of short stories intended for teenaged guys. On the publishing world's part, I suppose it's a combination of an altruistic intention to get teenaged boys to read and a desire to capitalize on the altruistic intentions of teachers, librarians, and parents to do the same. On my part, it's a little more complicated. Firstly, as a young male librarian I'm expected to be able to recommend books that young male reluctant readers will enjoy. Secondly, these collections tend to include my favorite authors, like Walter Dean Myers, Craig Thompson, Mo Willems, Terry Trueman, and David Levithan. Thirdly and fourthly is a combination of a desire to peek into the world of men and a relatively recent realization that I actually belong in the world of men.

So far, Every Man for Himself: Ten Short Stories About Being a Guy is my favorite of the lot. Guys Write for Guys Read has too much crap that feels like filler and Noisy Outlaws... is just a little on the weird side for my tastes. Good, but weird. Every Man for Himself sticks to only ten stories, so each story has room to develop into a complete piece, and has an amazing line-up of writers (half of which I've mentioned above). Of course, not every story is phenomenal, but even the one I was most disappointed in--a piece by Mo Willems about kids at a superhero high school that had a great premise but fell apart toward the end--was fun to read. My two favorite stories are one by Walter Dean Myers about a kid who lets his friends talk him into auctioning himself off as a prom date, and another by David Levithan about seventeen-year-old Graham, whose almost-thirteen-year-old brother tells their parents that he will not attend his own Bar Mitzvah unless they allow Graham's boyfriend to come--a noble gesture, but now Graham must come up with the boyfriend he doesn't really have.


(out of five)