Color Outside the Lines - Ed. by Sangu Mandanna

I don't often read anthologies (or short stories for that matter). I prefer my books a little longer so I can really get in to the story. Right from the introduction though, Color Outside the Lines grabbed me and sucked me in - 
"When people ask me what this anthology is about, I'm often tempted to give them the complicated answer: it's about race, about being different from the person you love - how it can matter and also not matter - and it's about Chinese pirate ghosts, and black girl vigilantes, and colonial India, and a flower festival, and a garden of poisons, and so, so much else. Honestly, though? I think the answer's much simpler than that. Color Outside the Lines is a collection of stories about young, fierce, brilliantly hopeful characters of all colors." (from the introduction by Sangu Mandanna).
I mean, how can you not want to read this book after that? What I loved the most was how different all of the stories were; it would have been easy to create an anthology of YA realistic fiction from the last couple of decades but that's exactly what this book isn't and why it's so wonderful. The stories run the gamut from realistic fiction to fantasy to historical fiction and they are so well curated that the transitions never seem jarring nor are they grouped in such a way that you feel the transition from genre to genre. The book flows smoothly from story to story, author to author.
Speaking of the stories - to go through each one individually would do the book a disservice. There is something here for everyone and that is part of the beauty of the book. I didn't love each and every story but there were some that left me breathless and wanting more. Some are blatant commentary on biracial relations and relationships and some are more subtle explorations of other types of differences. Some take place in the here and now, while others take place in the past or in a different world entirely. What links them together is the humanity of the characters - their strengths, their fears, their hopes, their love - and that's what kept me reading, story after story.

Appropriate for Gr. 6 and up. Some good choices to spark classroom discussions.