Plot Summary

   An anthology of stories that all contain the theme of collectors or collections.  Certain stories were very abstract and two of the stories mentioned collections as a theft of collection.  Following is a short summary of each story.

1. Playhouse by Anna-Marie McLemore  
  Miranda Asturias has an effortlessly beautiful mother who only has eyes for her father. That does not stop the rest of the neighborhood men from watching the mother and noticing when the father has to go out of town that summer for work. Uninvited, the men creep into the house and spend their free time eating and drinking to give the women "protection" despite many of them having wives and families waiting for them at home. Miranda starts to move her collection of glass blue birds and aprons to a garden shed, where she disconnects from her increasingly alarming situation. Miranda's mother feels powerless to turn the men away as they are a family of color living in a white neighborhood and already feel unwanted and lucky to be living in such a nice neighborhood. A tense story follows.

2. The White Savior Does Not Save the Day by Randy Ribay
  Perdita Padilla collects scripts and merchandise from her favorite canceled show White Savior. Her mother was the lead actress right before her disappearance and an unaired series finale. As Perdita chases down the last script for the unaired finale, she has to face the hole that was left by her mother's absence. Within the scripts of the show, the trope of white saviorism is explored as a well-intentioned effort by first-world countries to aid third-world countries only after destroying communities with the depletion of natural resources, colonialism, and cultural genocide. The super hero "White Savior" fights the villain "Big Brain" on the battleground of third world countries but often resolves issues by how she feels is right, not how the people are asking for help.

3. Take it from Me by David Levithan
An unnamed author begins a collection made from the theft of other collections at the age of six or seven. They order this habit, and the rest of their life, with rules and order. Only an item deemed less valuable in the collection can be stolen. Sometimes, a stolen item is replaced with an identical item from the author to avoid notice because the theft is the joy of the collection, not the item itself. As unnamed author grows into a teenager they have to consider how theft and deception will affect their relationships. When they start a romantic relationship with K they struggle with the trust that is implied between them as they stare at K's collection deep in the closet.   

4.  Ring of Fire by Jenny Torres Sanchez
Lucia started a collection of items related to fire at the age of nine with the death of her mother. It starts with a matchbook she finds in the hospital when her father keeps her from saying goodbye and grows to include a lighter and a candle. Her father is described as angry and controlling, and Lucia keeps quiet to avoid punishment. She steps into her mother's role as a homemaker by cooking and keeping the house clean. Lucia's fury with her father and the joyless life he forced on her and her mother leaks out in casual relationships, theft, and small fires. Will she escape her situation, find closure, or torch her home?

5. Museum of Misery by Cory McCarthy
This was one of the more abstract stories in the anthology, and it is my opinion that the Museum of Misery is a collection of trauma related to the visitor. The visitor is guided through exhibits by a motherly docent who does not see the visitor. The subjects of the exhibits vary from the assassinated free thinkers, targeted trans demographic, abandoned LGBTQ+ community, body-shamed women's diet, and conformed children. The museum ends with a message from the author to seek help from licensed mental health counselors and renovate your museum of misery. 

6. La Concha by e.E. Charlton-Trujillo
  Mia is living in a world of fantasy and reality. In short stories, she describes the sudden disappearance of her sister after her mother's remarriage. In her mind she is building an imaginary tank for protection and escape. In reality, she is filling her closet with a collection of jars filled with everything she can collect. The jars have glitter, beach sand, dirt from the Grand Canyon, mini cars, mismatched buttons, broken beer bottle glass, stick on stars, pencil shavings, unused Tampax, black and blue crayons, postcards, two nested jars with fortune cookie messages, tears, laughs, and coins collected by sister before she left. Her stepfather has a good image in the neighborhood and is awarded for his efforts as a community leader, but he is abusive to Mia and possibly to her sister before she left. Mia says her mother is dead to her, and it is strongly hinted that she is aware of the abuse. Will Mia make her escape with no one to check on her but the kind Elote man? 

7. Pool Bandits by G. Neri
1976, the drought in the South Bay of California is draining backyard pools in suburban neighborhoods. The historical evolution of skateboarding is captured in the narrative of Gio and his friends Alex, Bobby, and Skeezer. The boys start on homemade boards and ramps and then begin breaking into empty homes with pools after seeing pictures in magazines of the famous Dogtown Boys skateboarding in pools. As they scout more homes with pools, they begin a collection of stolen items from the homeowners. The danger is escalating as the crimes continue and the boys have to consider if they can stop and follow skateboarding to commodified skate parks opening nearby or if street skating is where their passion lies. 

8. We Are Looking for Home by A. S. King
Another abstract story for the anthology. The author starts by pointing to the human experience being a collection of experiences. The story closely follows the life of Jasper Miller as he is bullied, kind to his tormenters, and forms relationships with other teens living outside of the hive of teens that narrate the story. The narrator is going to the same school as Jasper but talking as an individual or a group. They are mean, jealous, and angry. Since the narrator is tied so closely to Jasper, I wondered if the narrator might be voices in his head. The story is unclear and difficult to summarize. It could take place in the present or the future as it mentions the common occurrence of school shooters. 

9. A Recording for Carole Before It All Goes by Jason Reynolds   
The grandmother, Carole, collects names with the letter C. Her daughter Christina, son-in-law Curtis, son Calamity, granddaughter Carroll, boyfriend Christopher, and dog Cangaroo. She believes Cs are a superior letter because they have no hard edges and no potential to make boxes. It makes sense that her ex-husband, who left her for another woman, would be named Marshall with so many hard edges to his name as to confirm her belief. Carroll collects her grandmother's memories, and in doing so, we learn about Carole's life and her old age. The granddaughter describes the light and the dark in her grandmother's life with such admiration and positivity. 

10. Sweet Everlasting by M.T. Anderson
The most fantastical story of the series is centered around a demon Flaelphoagor who turns his jealousy of mankind into a collection of humans frozen in time. Each person who is frozen has the thought, "I wish this moment could last forever." Across the centuries, people are granted their wish and tortured by the outcome forever. A child tasting his favorite cake is revolted by the flavor, and a couple stuck in a kiss grow from love to hatred. The stories warn the reader to be careful of what they wish for when a demon can take a person's greatest joy and turn it into their greatest pain. 

   
Critical Evaluation

Playhouse is a gripping story of predators pretending to be protectors and the uncomfortable position of two women who feel too weak in social standing to say anything. Ring of Fire also has a female narrator facing a claustrophobic home life because of a domineering male in her life. Lucia's collection in Ring of Fire is used as a form of escapism, just like Miranda in Playhouse and Mia in La Concha. The collections are filling a hole in the lives of these girls and offering them a hint of beauty in an ugly situation. All three of these stories were written with so much pain that you wanted to hug these girls and shake the adults in their lives who were not protecting them. 
White Savior has an undeniable plot hole for explaining how the series aired on TV with the mother in the lead role. As an exercise in reading stories with strong ties to certain races or cultures, I researched Anna-Marie McLemore, Playhouse, and Randy Ribay, White Savior, and found that McLemore is Mexican-American and Ribay is Filipino. This confirmed my intuition that the authors were writing from their cultural perspective about topics relating to white saviorism and preying on social standing.
Take it from Me explores the theme of collections as a common hobby for children that can turn into an unhealthy habit for older children and adults. Although K has a healthy use of their collection, the author has been avoiding meaningful relationships with their collection and struggles with a relationship that would be jeopardized by a theft. Similarily in Pool Bandits, Gio and his friends create a collection of stolen items from houses they are investigating as a place to skate. With the skating group, the collection is a trophy of their recklessness but not something that they spend much time with, but in both instances, the collections are dependent on taking from someone else. 
We Are Looking for Home and Museum of Misery are so abstract that I missed the message. I did not enjoy the ambiguity, but perhaps those stories were not made for me. What was made for me was A Recording for Carole Before It All Goes, which I will not go into detail about because the plot twist is what I connected with so deeply. Ending on Sweet Everlasting was a fun dip into science fiction and the human experience as a collection for a twisted demon. Overall, I found many of the stories enjoyable and found that each author approached the theme of collections in an interesting way. For many teens, the collections helped them to escape or face trauma, while others used their collections to rebel against authority figures. 

Creative Use for a Library Program

  Youth Writing Seminar: Include this anthology as an example for a short story writing seminar held for teens. Use different stories to highlight choices in writing styles. Consider giving the teens a theme to work off in their stories, similar to how The Collectors centers on collections. 

Book Talk

Miranda feels eyes watching in the distance the same night her father leaves for a long work trip. Gio and his ragtag group of skaters are on the hunt for empty pools to skate in. Which story will you follow? 

Reason for Inclusion

This collection of stories is deeply reflective of the teen experience. In some of the stories, the teens are being abused or harassed and take every opportunity to leave their homes. Other characters hear the call of adventure to leave their otherwise happy homelife. The teens are a combination of reckless, scared, conformists, outsiders, caretakers, and coddled. Centering the book around the theme of collections is an interesting choice because the purpose the collection serves depends on the person. The collection can be a crutch, an addiction, a call for help, or just a little slice of beauty.  The stories are varied and each will appeal to a different audience. 

Potential Challenges and  Defense Preparation

  LGBTQ+ themes, sexual content, violence, assault, racial discrimination, and mental health issues are considered mature content. Mature content is often challenged for reconsideration, especially when the stories have LGBTQ+ or POC main characters. A strong reconsideration policy is the best defense.