Walter Dean Myers goes back to the Harlem neighborhood that was the setting for 145th Street (Delacorte Press, 2000), penning a collection of short stories that explores many facets of love and loving. Myers’ characters range from an eight-year-old girl caring for her little brother and mother, to a quiet teenage girl who recognizes the tender side of a tough street kid named Burn but can’t find the words to bridge the gap between them; from a young woman helpless to save her brother from the scourge of drugs or her parents from the pain, to a single young mother who sees her love for her baby shining through the struggle of daily life in the portrait created by a young man who asked to paint them. Myers doesn’t look away from the challenges of urban life or love or even war, but his stories clearly assert that loves makes so much bearable, and sometimes possible. As in his earlier collection, the 145th Street neighborhood itself is both setting and character in a volume where several characters move in and out between and among the stories, like the neighborhood fixtures and visionaries they are. (Ages 13–16)