Big City Cool: Short Stories About Urban Youth

by Weiss, M. Jerry; Weiss, Helen S.

• ISBN13: 9780892552788
• ISBN10: 0892552786
• Edition: 00
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-11-17
• Publisher: PERSEA

Summary

In these fourteen authentic short stories, young people growing up in Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, DC, New York, and elsewhere contend with city realities: a former child-star must resist her mother's dreams of Hollywood to pursue her own interest in archaeology; in a Baltimore courtroom, a boy testifies against a drug dealer who, if freed, will surely want revenge; a block party in Harlem is the setting first for a family argument and then for an act of neighborly kindness.... These stories of young people of all backgrounds'”from the privileged to the poor, from immigrant to native-born'”beat with the pulse of city life. They neither extol nor condemn but frankly reflect the city's real excitements and perils. For urban teens, these are pages out of daily life. For those who live elsewhere, here is a glimpse into a world so often imagined. Among the authors are Judith Ortiz Cofer, Eugenia Collier, Ann Hood, Cherylene Lee, Paul Many, Walter Dean Myers, Michael Rosovsky, Neal Shusterman, Amy Tan, Elennora Tate, and Kurt Vonnegut.

Table of Contents

Introduction	vii
Block Party---145th Street Style	3	(10)
Walter Dean Myers
Harlem/New York, New York
Freezer Burn	13	(12)
Michael Rosovsky
Boston, Massachusetts
``White'' Real Estate	25	(13)
Sharon Dennis Wyeth
Washington, D.C.
Rules of the Game	38	(13)
Amy Tan
San Francisco, California
Alone and All Together	51	(13)
Joseph Geha
Chicago, Illinois
American History	64	(9)
Judith Ortiz Cofer
Paterson, New Jersey
Dead Man Running	73	(17)
Eugenia Collier
Baltimore, Maryland
Blues for Bob E. Brown	90	(17)
T. Ernesto Bethancourt
Upper West Side/New York, New York
Blue Diamond	107	(13)
Neal Shusterman
Las Vegas, Nevada
Hollywood and the Pits	120	(10)
Cherylene Lee
Los Angeles, California
The Baldies Are Coming	130	(9)
Paul Many
Cleveland, Ohio
Don't Split the Pole	139	(13)
Eleanora E. Tate
Morehead City, North Carolina
The Avalon Ballroom	152	(12)
Ann Hood
Greenwich Village/New York, New York
Old School/Fu-Char Skool	164	(15)
John H. Ritter
San Diego, California
Biographical Notes on the Authors	179