From: Steven Engelfried <sengelfried>
Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 10:05:17 -0700

One approach to communities that I often appreciate is when a good author puts together a group of related, but separate, short stories. "Life is Funny" by E.R. Frank is one example. The lives of most of the characters intersect in major and minor ways, but you don't see all the connections until the end. The powerful individual stories ended up meaning more when we learn about the lives of others in the community. From the outside, you wouldn't even think of it as a unified community, but the way characters affect each other, knowingly or not, means a lot. In "Seedfolks" you can see the results of the community building in the garden, but here you only see the results by knowing the inner lives of the characters. "An Island Like You" by Judith Ortiz Cofer, "What's in a Name" by Ellen Wittlinger, and
"Bat 6" by Virginia Euwer Wolff are a couple of others that do this really well.

- Steven Engelfried, Head of Youth Services
 Beaverton City Library
 12375 SW 5th Street
 Beaverton, OR 97005
 503R6%99
 sengelfried at ci.beaverton.or.us
Received on Tue 07 Oct 2003 12:05:17 PM CDT