The Collectors: Stories

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.

Description of the stories

A demon displays his collection of humans who asked for a single moment to last forever, with devastating results."—M. T. Anderson, National Book Award and Margaret A. Edwards Award winning author of Feed.

TK—e.E. Charlton-Trujillo, filmmaker, activist, and acclaimed author of the Fat Angie series

"A collective of teens are trying to find home. Jasper Miller has broken from the pack. While the collective does ‘normal’ shit, Jasper Miller builds a housing development inside himself in which the story takes place."—A.S. King, winner of the LA Times, Michael L. Printz, and Margaret A. Edwards awards

"A story about a kid who likes to steal from other people’s collections, and thus has a collection of other people’s collections."—David Levithan, bestselling author of Boy Meets Boy and winner of the Margaret A. Edwards Award

"You have arrived at the museum. The museum is made of your own doubts and disasters. A docent tends to your misery like a tiny garden."—Cory McCarthy, bestselling author of Man o' War and Hope Is an Arrow

"Miranda and her mother are spending a few months alone while her father works away from home. The neighborhood men start to fill up the house—a collection of eerie furniture—until Miranda makes the decision her mother found impossible which makes them all go away."—Anna-Marie McLemore, William C. Morris finalist and Stonewall Book Award honoree

"A group of teen skater kids in Southern California collect neighborhood pools in which to go vertical during a 1970s summer."—G. Neri, Coretta Scott King honoree, and author of Ghetto Cowboy

"A child collects everyday sounds to give to his grandmother who is losing her hearing."—Jason Reynolds, #1 NYT bestseller, Printz and Newbery honoree, National Book Award finalist, and National Ambassador for Children's Literature

"A Filipino teen girl who collects memorabilia from a TV show starring White Savior, a blond-haired, blue-eyed superhero, seeks her mother—the actress who played her."—Randy Ribay, author of Patron Saints of Nothing, a National Book Award Finalist

"Since her mother died, Lucia is collecting fire in various forms and trying very hard not to combust."—Jenny Torres Sanchez, author of We Are Not from Here, a Pura Belpré honor book

A.S. King is the award-winning author of many acclaimed books for young readers. Her novel Dig won the 2020 Michael L. Printz Award, and Ask The Passengers won the 2013 Los Angeles Times Book Prize. The New York Times called her “one of the best YA writers working today.” She is the recipient of the Margaret A. Edwards Award for her contribution 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.