Feeding at Nine

Dave Jenkinson is a professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba and the author of the “Portraits” section of Emergency Librarian.

Ranging in length from 3 to 18 pages, the 14 short stories in this
excellent collection offer a great deal of variety in content and style.
As expected, many of MacIntyre’s protagonists, mostly male, are
adolescents, but a number, such as eight-year-old Hugh in “Pink Bike
Black,” are much younger than the work’s intended high-school
audience. Some stories focus on problems typically experienced by teens
while growing up, such as “Colm,” where the story’s title
character is thrown out of his home by his father after being expelled
from school. Others, like “Hankwoman,” deal with adult children
responding to a parent’s situation, in this case a mother’s terminal
cancer. Some stories, including “Invisible to Dogs,” make use of
multiple narrators, and others, like “The Diamond Ring” and
“Anna’s Flowers,” begin in the central characters’
childhood/adolescence but conclude in their adult years.

Though the collection’s contents could be generally characterized as
“realistic fiction,” a few pieces, including “The Witch’s
Daughters” and “Tippy Tango,” incorporate supernatural elements.
“Feeding Piranha,” in which a wannabe poet gets some hard advice
from a pro, should be required reading for all aspiring writers. A nice
closing touch is “Backstories,” in which MacIntyre shares the
stories behind his stories. If “Invisible to Dogs” appears familiar
to readers, it’s because it first appeared in The Horrors: Terrifying
Tales (2005), a point not acknowledged in “Backstories.”

A definite addition to young-adult libraries, Feeding at Nine would not
be out of place in adult collections as well. Highly recommended.