Down on the Sidewalk
Stories about Children and Childhood from the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction
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Front porches, family cars, playgrounds, swimming pools: from such familiar haunts of childhood, these stories look out on the world through young eyes and hearts. Wise beyond their years—or soon to be—Ruthie, Omar, J.J., and the other kids in these stories veer in and out of touching distance to hard lessons about trust, love, and mortality. However engaged or aloof, grownups are always nearby. Far-from-perfect emissaries to the realm of adulthood, they pose questions for children even as they offer answers.
Ethan Laughman
ETHAN LAUGHMAN is among the few who have read every Flannery O’Connor Award–winning volume. He collaborated closely with the series’ authors in compiling these new anthologies. He currently teaches high school English.
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