Dancing Pink Flamingos and Other Stories

by Maria Testa

A collection of short stories about young people in a variety of urban situations and settings.

115 pages, Library Binding

First published October 1, 1997

About the author

"My father was not a storyteller," says Maria Testa, author of the critically acclaimed poetic novels SOMETHING ABOUT AMERICA, ALMOST FOREVER and BECOMING JOE DIMAGGIO. "Our family was not the kind that sat on the front porch, sipping lemonade and listening to the elders reminisce. We were doers and did not spend a lot of time on verbal reflection."

How then, did Maria Testa come to write three deeply affecting novels? Maria Testa's latest novel, SOMETHING ABOUT AMERICA, was inspired by true events in Lewiston, Maine. Narrated by a young daughter from Kosova, this nuanced and deeply moving tale explores immigration in contemporary America.


Previously, Maria Testa has found inspiration from her family history. "Sometime, without remembering when, exactly, I learned about my father's life before me, before Vietnam, before medical school," she says of BECOMING JOE DIMAGGIO, which takes readers back to the summer of 1936. "Maybe it was in the car, out in the yard playing catch or pulling weeds, at the dinner table, or between the innings of a Yankees game on television. Somehow, without remembering how, exactly, I learned about a radio, a garden, a grandfather, and Joe Dimaggio. So maybe my father was a storyteller after all."


With ALMOST FOREVER, Maria Testa moves ahead to the 1960s to evoke--through the eyes of a six-year-old girl--the experience of seeing one's father march off to Vietnam to serve a year in the U.S. Army Medical Corps. "It is a tribute to the children of Vietnam veterans and to those who did not come home from war," she says. "It is my hope that we can always remember ourselves as children, so as not to forget the new generation of young people still waiting for the end of forever."


The recipient of a Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators Work-in-Progress Grant for BECOMING JOE DIMAGGIO, Maria Testa has garnered extraordinary praise for her spare, gripping novels. "Powerfully moving, as it braids together baseball, family, and the Italian-American experience," said BOOKLIST's starred review BECOMING JOE DIMAGGIO, which was selected as an American Library Association Notable Book for Children, an IRA Children's Choice, and a Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award Winner, among other accolades. "A tour de force," raves a starred review ALMOST FOREVER in KIRKUS REVIEWS. "Rapt readers don't need to know anything about Vietnam to understand love, loss, fear, and waiting."


Maria Testa has written three picture books for children and a collection of short stories for young adults. She is also the author of another book about baseball, SOME KIND OF PRIDE, which was awarded the Marguerite De Angeli Prize for a first middle-grade novel. Maria Testa grew up in Rhode Island and now lives in Portland, Maine, with her family.

Reviews

[Lara Vehar]

I really, really hate reviewing books with multiple stories but I read it and I enjoyed some and some not so much I guess- now to individual stories:

1. I liked this one I guess, it's a story about losing someone to suicide, people judging you and than someone that you dislike comes along and tells you that it's not your fault and they bring you back up.
2. This one was just confusing to me I guess, it has a lot of build up and than really confusing ending. Who came along and punched the guy? The girl's family, her boyfriend, her friends, nobody related to her?
3. This story was my second favourite one, I related to the characters and I really liked the story flow, i just really really wanted to know what happened to the picture after the end of the story.
4. This one was okay, a good story I guess but not the best one at the same time, I really wanted to know if police ever found out what happened and who did it or not, the ending was just so abrupt and disappointing after a rather good build up.
5. Again good build up but annoying ending - I really wanted to know what happened, did he hit him or not and what did the father do to end up in jail?
6. Great build up, great story, but again disappointing ending - who killed the boy?
7. I kinda liked this one, the story was good, build up was good and the ending was good though I really hoped that Cecilia would come back and help him or something.
8. I liked the story and I liked the ending- overall I think that this was my third favourite story in regards of how good I think it was.
9. This one was my favourite, I loved the story and I really liked the ending because I didn't expect it and it creeped me out - The story was good, progressing nicely, detailed, long enough, not too long, not to short and the characters were well done- Just wish that all the stories were like this one.
10. The last one seemed so confusing to me - it was too short, no build up and really weird ending- so they killed someone and police was after them - how did they kill them? Who did they kill? Why did they kill them? - Such a disappointing last story.

Overall it was a cool short read- I believe that I was done in less than an hour. I am probably not reading it again besides the "Rocker" story- too many stories are boring and have a weird ending, the backside of the book looked really promising, too bad that there are too many bad stories to make up for the one I really liked hence why I decided to give this book 2 stars overall.