Gr 8-11‘Beyond Dreams will be popular with teens who have enjoyed Chris Crutcher's Athletic Shorts (Greenwillow, 1991). Like his characters, Reynolds's young people struggle against seemingly insurmountable odds but do eventually succeed in improving their lives. They're not too good to be true, though‘they seem like real kids. The language here is a little raw, but the situations will be familiar to far too many teens: school failure, pregnancy and abortion, racism, a fatal car accident, an aging relative, violence and abuse by a lover. Reynolds sets this collection of six stories in Hamilton High, a fictional, urban, ethnically mixed secondary school somewhere in Southern California, but the stories are universal. Some characters have parents who can provide emotional guidance, but others are stumbling through life without support. YAs will look forward to the next installment in the series.‘Susan R. Farber, Chappaqua Library, NY
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