What Are You Afraid Of?

What Are You Afraid Of? Edited by Donald R. Gallo Candlewick Press, 2006, 189 pp., $15.99 Short Stories/Phobias ISBN: 0763626546

Excessive fears, debilitating fears that cannot be rationalized away, grip teenagers' lives, causing them to be the brunt of bullying, the focus of jokes, and the cause of nightmares for parents and friends who only want to help.

These short stories demonstrate how the fear of string, crossing a road, cats, sharp knives, or clowns can make "normal" life impossible for teens. Most of them get help from a professional or a friend or a parent by learning that they first have to face thenfears and then take one day at a time to overcome them. The last story will leave you with a taste of fear in your own mouth as the usual source of fears is reversed.

Readers will laugh, shiver, and empathize with phobies who can't control their own thoughts and who can't make their bodies react to seemingly natural events. Anthologist Gallo has collected 11 phobia-ridden stories that hold readers' attention long after they finish reading.

Carolyn Lott

Missoula, MT

Copyright Assembly on Literature for Adolescents -- National Council of Teachers of English Summer 2006
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