Nancy Mercado

A little background: at the end of my last semester, my YA lit professor suggested I add a wider variety of YA books to my repetoire. Namely: books with male protagonists. She's right. I'm a sucker for the chick lit, the female empowerment, the girls coming of age. I'm a chick. I can relate. But, in an effort to be more well rounded, I grabbed a bunch of boy books from the library. This was one of them.

The stories were... ok. I'm familiar with the authors and their other work: Walter Dean show more Myers, Mo Willems, David Levithan. Yep. Check. Good books, great artwork. But a lot of the short stories felt incomplete. Its hard to write a good short story. I know. But... eh. I can't even muster enough excitement to write full sentences and use big girl words.

David Leviathan didn't disappoint. His story about a gay dancer was so very... Levithan. He makes being gay look so... easy. Perfectly utopian societies where everyone gets a happy ending and a boyfriend. How disappointing that his interview at the end was so awful. He came across as arrogant and obnoxious where every other author was personable and cute. Poor showing David. show less

Book: Every Man for Himself
Author: Editor, Nancy Mercado, multiple authors
Characters: Many “Guys”
Setting: Various
Theme: coming of age for young men
Genre: fiction
Audience: ages 14 +
Curriculum: Great high/low book for young men growing into their own. Good for a health class, or even when they get that puberty lesson.
Summary: Collection of short stories: one story a “guy” shoots his Dad in the butt with a BB gun, a “guy” with super powers and a “guy” who’s little brother show more is braver than him. Stories are intended to last the decades for all young men to relate to.
Personal Response: Good book some funny stories that can give insight on the male gender and help with those hard times for young men in defining their manhood. Who knows when it happens or if it will happen more than once. show less

This is a great collection of fun stories for your tweener. It's hard to find book collections not aimed at the teenage crowd.

There's a wide range of stories in this collection, many of which are not as baseball-centric as one might anticipate. I enjoyed "Just Like Grampy" the best.