A. S. King had an idea and a pretty talented group of friends to help pursue it. Ever a proponent of short-form fiction, she wanted to put together an anthology and offered contributors a dual prompt: Write about a collection and its collector and make it as weird as you possibly can.

She told them to be “defiantly creative,” stressing the emotional currency of weirdness and how every teen feels weird no matter how popular they are.

The result, “The Collectors: Stories,” was the first anthology to win the Printz Medal. In this book, 10 acclaimed young adult (YA) authors explore the artistry and emotion behind the human instinct to collect.

Each story features a different type of collection, from the tangible (glass bluebirds and fandom memorabilia) to the experiential (skateboarding in empty swimming pools) and the intangible (misery, doubts, dreams, and moments that you wish could last forever).

The characters discover strengths and yearned-for connections to themselves and others through what they collect.

When men aggressively pursue her beautiful mother, a Latine teen living in white suburbia protects herself and her home in Anna-Marie McLemore’s “Play House.” In “Take It From Me” by David Levithan, first love makes a nonbinary teen question the purpose and the impact of their collection that’s curated from objects stolen from other collections.

Randy Ribay’s “The White Savior Does Not Save the Day” centers a Filipino and white teen who collects scripts from a canceled superhero show and crosses dimensions, searching for clarity about herself and her absent white mother.

Cory McCarthy presents “museum of misery,” an emotionally raw, illustrated tour through a museum of trauma and internalized self-hatred.

Embracing weirdness, many of the stories defy genre categories, blending reality with fantastical metaphors. Although honest about the weight of complex social themes, including systemic injustice, gun violence, abuse, and self-harm, this anthology balances heaviness with hope.