Written in the Stars: Early Stories

by Lois Duncan

Overview

“What makes ‘Written in the Stars’ striking and quite wonderful is the ease and sagacity with which Ms. Duncan writes about adolescence (at an astonishingly young authorial age) and the emotional resonance she creates with characters we will know only briefly—for such is the nature of short stories.”—Wall Street Journal

An extraordinary look at the genesis of a great writer’s career, Written in the Stars is a collection of Lois Duncan’s earliest stories. composed from the ages of 13 through 22. From family relationships, to the joy and angst of first love, to the struggles of a young soldier returning from war with PTSD, this unique book, whose stories originally appeared in magazines such as Seventeen and American Girl, is a marvelous portrait of the depth and breadth of Duncan’s youthful work. As a special bonus, Lois has followed each story with a brief essay describing her work and life at the time the story was written. Written in the Stars is a must-have addition to the library of work from this spectacular and groundbreaking young adult author.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781939601148
Publisher:	Ig Publishing
Publication date:	05/13/2014
Pages:	228
Sales rank:	691,418
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.50(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	12 - 17 Years

About the Author

Lois Duncan is the author of over fifty books, ranging from children's picture books to poetry to adult nonfiction, but is best known for her young adult suspense novels, such as Stranger With My Face and I Know What You Did Last Summer. She has been awarded the Margaret A. Edwards Award, presented by the School Library Journal and the ALA Young Adult Library Services Association for "a distinguished body of adolescent literature." In 2009 she received the Katharine Drexel Award, awarded by the Catholic Library Association "to recognize an outstanding contribution by an individual to the growth of high school and young adult librarianship and literature."

Table of Contents

Written in the Stars 13

Return 27

The Wish 41

P. S. We Are Fine 57

The Corner 73

Bruce McCown's Sister 87

Stop Calling Me Baby 101

The Reason 115

The Silver Bracelet 123

Detestable Dale 139

April 155

Time To Find Out 177

The Lost Christmas 199

The Last Night 211

Editorial Reviews

04/01/2014
Gr 7 Up—This collection of hard-to-find short stories written at the beginning of Duncan's career in the early 1950s transports readers to another era, one in which marrying one's high school sweetheart was the norm and the chief concern of most young girls was finding the right man with whom to settle down. The cadence and vocabulary evoke the period. "Written in the Stars" features a girl realizing with shock that her high school beau isn't "The One" as they drift apart once he starts college. In "Return," shell-shocked young veteran Bill struggles with readjusting to life back home from the front. "April" deals with the intense sibling rivalry between intelligent but plain Martha Dunning and her glamorous older sister April, who appears to coast by on her good looks. Close-knit families with warm and supportive brother/sister relationships that echo the author's own family are featured in most of the stories. Each entry is appended with a note from the author on where each piece was originally published, her inspiration for it, and what was happening in her life at that time. Perfect for Duncan completists, this collection may spark interesting conversations with teens about how gender roles have changed over the years.—Madigan McGillicuddy, Atlanta-Fulton Public Library, Atlanta, GA

School Library Journal

2014-03-11
Readers of a certain age will recall reading Duncan's stories in Seventeen and Calling All Girls. Fourteen stories are collected here with a prologue and commentary on each by the award-winning author best known for her young-adult novels. At the age of 13, she sold the story "P.S. We Are Fine," which was the genesis of Hotel for Dogs. "Return," about a soldier home from war, was written when she was 18. She still wonders why it won Seventeen's creative-writing contest in 1953. But it's clear that she had a talent for natural-sounding dialogue and an insight into human relationships. Aside from their origins as the author's early work, there's no real unifying theme; it's a pity there is no editorial introduction to lay them out. The most autobiographical of the stories, "The Last Night," is told from the perspective of a room that has seen a girl become a young woman. It provides an answer to that often-asked question—why she writes: "Anne comes again to her desk and reaches for the words. They are still there, shining and golden at her mind's edge. They tremble on her pen and dance onto the paper" until her pen runs out of ink. Of interest mainly to fans, this collection stands as a tribute to the body of work that has poured out of Duncan's pen since she herself was a girl. (Short stories. 12 & up)

Kirkus Reviews