Flying Lessons and Other Stories

Outstanding collection with so many amazing stories! Matt de la Pena and Walter Dean Myers bookend it with two of the best shorts I've read for ages, but there's not a weak link in this wonderful anthology - and such variety in characters and stories! Special mention to contest winner Kelly J Baptist, whose story absolutely holds up against the more experienced and better known authors here. A definite must read!

My 11 year old grandson and I read this book separately, and then compared our responses. Both of us loved this book. My grandson is an avid reader, and his reading comprehension is at a very high level. He remembers a lot of little trivia, that I do not, and thus it is fun for me to talk about the book with him, I learn a great deal.This book is a compilation of ten stories told by ten different authors. Of course, my grandson remembered his favorite authors, and even though we agreed they were all excellent stories, well written and very authentic, we agreed one story was a stand out.The stories and authors are:"Foreword," by Ellen Oh"How to Transform an Everyday Hoop Court Into a Place of Higher Learning and You at the Podium," by Dion Graham"The Difficult Path," by Samantha Quan"Sol Painting, Inc.," by Meg Medina"Secret Samantha," by Julia Whelan"The Beans and Rice Chronicles of Isaiah Dunn," by Adam Lazarre-White"Choctaw Bigfoot, Midnight in the Mountains," by Tim Tingle"Main Street," by Abigail Revasch"Flying Lessons," by Sunil Malhotra"Seventy-Six Dollars and Forty-Nine Cents," by Kwame Alexander"Sometimes a Dream Needs a Push by Walter Dean Myers'Sometimes a Dream Needs a Push,' is our favorite. It is about a boy whose father was a great basketball player, who gives his son's wheelchair basketball team some pointers, and it is written by Walter Dean Myers. I will remember this author.We are introduced to the authors with a short summary of their work. If you want to read out of order, that is up to you.The stories run the gamut from sibling rivalry, friendships, first loves, parents, and difficulties in school. There is something for everyone, and we liked all of the stories.Recommended. prisrob 02-04-17

Great stories. Not quite the right age range for my class. Think they would be more suited to a mature year 6 class or high school children. I enjoyed reading them though and there are some excellent themes that could be discussed!

For this read I combined two things which I never do - read short and diverse stories. I am not a fan of short stories, I feel like if I'm investing time into a book I want a good amount of detail out of it. In terms of diverse stories for whatever reason I just don't read them, I always end up picking the same stories about the same people and a variation of them. Therefore this was a new and refreshing read for me.After reading the book I'm still not convinced that short stories are for me (sorry) however I definitely feel like I learnt something from this book. I got to read from characters that I normally wouldn't, I got to see things from a different perspective in a way that I never would have thought possible. Each of the stories had their own unique voice that really made the stories come alive which really made me enjoy the book.Each story (if you hadn't already guessed), is about characters or authors who are diverse, they may be from a different culture or have a disability. Either way they are different from the characters exhibited in the majority of works nowadays.I'm not going to go through each story as I think that the reader should go into them knowing nothing so that you can experience the story the way the authors wanted you to. Some of the authors have such distinctive and beautiful voices that really do make the stories come alive.Although I'm not a fan of short stories I did like this book. I didn't think it was brilliant however I would recommend this book. It was interesting to read different stories from different perspectives and I feel that more should be written from these perspectives.

This is a fantastic book for middle grades. It gives a voice to people who do not see themselves in literature frequently enough. It also addresses situations and opportunities that don't get portrayed in literature enough, things like living out of a hotel room, watching a parent do something you didn't think was right, having feelings about someone new, family storytelling, playing pick up basketball at the municipal gym, being a person of color in an all white community, and playing basketball when you're confined to a wheelchair. Every voice is different. But every voice is also important. They tell their own stories, but they tell our stories too. Because we all have an experience where we're new or where we want to get into a group and don't know how. We've all had a crush on someone and don't know how to get their attention. We have younger or older siblings, friends who move away, teachers who understand us, and those who don't. We're embarrassed by our parents, and we love them, and we support them, and we miss them, and we're ashamed by them, and sometimes all at the same time. This book is full of stories. But the stories need to be told. And they need to be read.

É uma coletânea de histórias otimistas e foi dado como leitura obrigatória de inglês para um aluno meu de escola bilíngue (7o ano). Não li todas as histórias (cada capítulo corresponde a um conto), mas li uns 40%. São histórias de otimismo. Em geral, apresentam algum problema relacionado à maturidade, a como um pré-adolescente pode superar situações difíceis em sua formação.

Excellent stories to share with my class. Love all of the books from this publisher.

Purchased to bring increased diversity to my classroom. Fantastic collection of stories of interest to today’s teens.

I can't say enough good things about these stories! First of all, the writers are all excellent in their own right, and I've read a couple of their full novels before, so I was expecting good things, but not to this level! The first story is PERFECT for reluctant male readers who like basketball, or any reader who needs a good story about persistence in getting to your goal. I had to re-read several of them multiple times, only because they were THAT good. The diversity in this collection is there without being exclusive. Meaning anyone can enjoy the story, but those who have experienced what the character is going through (example, living in a hotel room/homelessness/racism, etc.) will find themselves in at least one of these stories. The stories are short enough for anyone to finish rather quickly, but still fully complete in their plot line. I have recommended this to several other teachers who have purchased it for their classrooms.