The Collectors: Stories

Book Synopsis

Winner of the 2024 Michael L. Printz Award
A National Bestseller

From Michael L. Printz Award winner A.S. King and an all-star team of contributors including Anna-Marie McLemore and Jason Reynolds, an anthology of stories about remarkable people and their strange and surprising collections.

From David Levithan's story about a non-binary kid collecting pieces of other people's collections to Jenny Torres Sanchez's tale of a girl gathering types of fire while trying not to get burned to G. Neri's piece about 1970's skaters seeking opportunities to go vertical--anything can be collected and in the hands of these award-winning and bestselling authors, any collection can tell a story. Nine of the best YA novelists working today have written fiction based on a prompt from Printz-winner A.S. King (who also contributes a story) and the result is itself an extraordinary collection.

M. T. Anderson, e. E. Charlton-Trujillo, A.S. King, David Levithan, Cory McCarthy, Anna-Marie McLemore, G. Neri, Jason Reynolds, Randy Ribay, and Jenny Torres Sanchez have each penned a surprising and provocative tale.

(Cover art may vary.)

Review Quotes

Winner of the Michael L. Printz Award

★ "An eclectic, poignant, and introspective treasure trove."--Kirkus, starred review

★ "Masterfully collected and worth slowing down to absorb."--SLJ, starred review

★ "[H]ere is a collection notable for the uniform excellence of 10 of its stories, which come from such distinguished creators as M. T. Anderson, David Levithan, Anna-Marie McLemore, Jason Reynolds, and its inimitable editor, King herself...[Readers] will revel in this wonderfully genre-defying, offbeat book that is one of the most original of the year."--Booklist, starred review

"King proclaims, in an introduction, that 'there is currency in weirdness'; by turns darkly cheeky and piercingly perceptive, this moody and existential grouping of stories lives up to the statement."--Publishers Weekly

About the Author

Hailed by the New York Times as "one of the best YA writers working today," A.S. King is the author of over a dozen books for young readers. She is the only two-time winner of the Michael L. Printz Award. She is the winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. She is the recipient of both the Margaret A. Edwards Award and the ALAN Award for her lifetime contributions to young adult literature. King lives with her family in Pennsylvania, where she returned after living on a farm and teaching adult literacy in Ireland for more than a decade.