Rating: 
Summary: Unhappy Secrets
Review: "Dirty Laundry: Stories About Family Secrets" is a well compiled and, for the most part, well written anthology of stories. Each revolves around a long-concealed secret, and most are entertaining, though the overall tone of the book does tend to lean toward the morbid - or at least unpleasant. The book was edited by author Lisa Rowe Frautino, who also penned its well-written but sometimes very disturbing story, "FRESh PAINt". A couple other stories of note are "The Secret of Life, According to Aunt Gladys" by Bruce Coville ("Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher"), "I Will Not Think of Maine" by M.E. Kerr, and "Rice Pudding Days" by Susan Campbell Bartoletti. To sum up: I personally am not a fan of unhappy stories, especially so many in one place, but this is still a high-quality book which makes for interesting and often mysterious reading. Still, I would not recommend it to anyone under 14 or so -- for a younger person looking for a short story anthology, I would recommend "13: Thirteen stories that celebrate the agony and ecstasy of being thirteen" (which incidentally also features an entertaining story by the aforementioned Coville).
Rating:
Summary: Unhappy Secrets
Review: "Dirty Laundry: Stories About Family Secrets" is a well compiled and, for the most part, well written anthology of stories. Each revolves around a long-concealed secret, and most are entertaining, though the overall tone of the book does tend to lean toward the morbid - or at least unpleasant. The book was edited by author Lisa Rowe Frautino, who also penned its well-written but sometimes very disturbing story, "FRESh PAINt". A couple other stories of note are "The Secret of Life, According to Aunt Gladys" by Bruce Coville ("Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher"), "I Will Not Think of Maine" by M.E. Kerr, and "Rice Pudding Days" by Susan Campbell Bartoletti. To sum up: I personally am not a fan of unhappy stories, especially so many in one place, but this is still a high-quality book which makes for interesting and often mysterious reading. Still, I would not recommend it to anyone under 14 or so -- for a younger person looking for a short story anthology, I would recommend "13: Thirteen stories that celebrate the agony and ecstasy of being thirteen" (which incidentally also features an entertaining story by the aforementioned Coville).
Rating: 
Summary: I enjoyed almost every story tremendously
Review: As a grad school student who had to read a book on controversy in literature for class, I stumbled across this book in the library and was more than pleasantly surprised. The stories are sometimes touching, sometimes humorous and very different from one another. I think this book helps people understand that no family is truly "normal". I especially liked "Rice Pudding Days", "Passport" and "Popeye the Sailor"
Rating: 
Summary: not worth your time
Review: I read the entire anthology. "Passport" and "Something Like . . . Love" were good stories. Not great, but good. Every other story in the anthology, though, was awful. Some would have been disappointing from a middle schooler; in the cases of authors whose other stories or novels I had read, I found those in this anthology poor examples of their writing; in the cases of authors whose other work I had not read, this book was no motivation. Also: you at Amazon have listed the book's reading level as "Ages 9 to 12." Are you sure you don't mean "Grades 9 to 12"?
Rating:
Summary: Some stories were great, but other's were terrible.
Review: I think that most readers would like something about this book because each story had different qualities than all of the other stories. The main theme of this book is that the sterotype of a perfect family is really a very odd family, because every family is different,and every family has problems. I think that this is a great book for any kind of reader.
Rating:
Summary: Dirty Laundry, but Decent Literature
Review: I wasn't overly impressed with this collection of short stories. The first story "The Secret Life, According to Aunt Gladys" by Bruce Coville started the book off in a great place (although the book sleeve ruined an early shock) especially with its haunting last line. Then the stories of Susan Campbell Bartoletti, Dian Curtis Regan, Anna Grossnickle Hines, Rita Williams-Garcia, and Richard Peck all suffered from predictability and a been-there-read-that mentality. The stories were okay, and some even better than that, but reading one after the other was just too much. The next story, although entertaining, was too science fiction for me. Yes, "I Will Not Think of Maine" by M.E. Kerr dealt with a family secret, but you have to beleive in the supernatural to fully except the story. Currently, I'm reading for reality. I'm looking for stories that can be used to help some of the kids that I'm working for. This story is not one of them. Then came a diamond in the rough. "FRESh PAINt" by Lisa Rowe Fraustino (the editor) was a awesome and moving story. I can't beleive that none of the other reviewers to this date (July 14, 2001) have mentioned it. This short story was one of the longest in the book (and I hate LONG SHORT stories) but I flew through it. "FRESh PAINt" has a strong mystery, a strong family secrets, and a painful moment that brought me to tears. Anyone who has read the story knows what I am talking about. The rest of the stories also were pretty good and seem to be favorites of other reviewers. "Passport" bt Laurie Halse Anderson has a creative and sharp-tongued style that made it a joy to read. "Something Like... Love" by Graham Salisbury was a nice story, but its family secret was probably the weakest of the collection. "Popeye the Sailor" by Chris Crutcher was definitely the correct story to end the book with. Its conclusion seems to put an okay book to rest. The style of the story (it opens as a play before turning to narrative) is gripping. The story shocks you into beleiving and it ends before we know everything, but we know enough. It's a wonderful story. Overall, the book is decent. The long stretch of predictablity to supernatural from Campbell Bartoletti's "Rice Pudding Days" to Kerr's "I Will Not Think of Maine" makes the book hard to finish, but with Rowe Fraustino and Crutcher, there is light at the end of the tunnel.
Rating:
Summary: Dirty Laundry, but Decent Literature
Review: I wasn't overly impressed with this collection of short stories. The first story "The Secret Life, According to Aunt Gladys" by Bruce Coville started the book off in a great place (although the book sleeve ruined an early shock) especially with its haunting last line. Then the stories of Susan Campbell Bartoletti, Dian Curtis Regan, Anna Grossnickle Hines, Rita Williams-Garcia, and Richard Peck all suffered from predictability and a been-there-read-that mentality. The stories were okay, and some even better than that, but reading one after the other was just too much. The next story, although entertaining, was too science fiction for me. Yes, "I Will Not Think of Maine" by M.E. Kerr dealt with a family secret, but you have to beleive in the supernatural to fully except the story. Currently, I'm reading for reality. I'm looking for stories that can be used to help some of the kids that I'm working for. This story is not one of them. Then came a diamond in the rough. "FRESh PAINt" by Lisa Rowe Fraustino (the editor) was a awesome and moving story. I can't beleive that none of the other reviewers to this date (July 14, 2001) have mentioned it. This short story was one of the longest in the book (and I hate LONG SHORT stories) but I flew through it. "FRESh PAINt" has a strong mystery, a strong family secrets, and a painful moment that brought me to tears. Anyone who has read the story knows what I am talking about. The rest of the stories also were pretty good and seem to be favorites of other reviewers. "Passport" bt Laurie Halse Anderson has a creative and sharp-tongued style that made it a joy to read. "Something Like... Love" by Graham Salisbury was a nice story, but its family secret was probably the weakest of the collection. "Popeye the Sailor" by Chris Crutcher was definitely the correct story to end the book with. Its conclusion seems to put an okay book to rest. The style of the story (it opens as a play before turning to narrative) is gripping. The story shocks you into beleiving and it ends before we know everything, but we know enough. It's a wonderful story. Overall, the book is decent. The long stretch of predictablity to supernatural from Campbell Bartoletti's "Rice Pudding Days" to Kerr's "I Will Not Think of Maine" makes the book hard to finish, but with Rowe Fraustino and Crutcher, there is light at the end of the tunnel.
Rating: 
Summary: Correction to the Kirkus review
Review: The review from Kirkus attributes the story "Rice Pudding Days," about an abortion, to Anna Grossnickle Hines. The author of the story is actually Susan Campbell Bartoletti.
Rating:
Summary: Durty Laundy, edited by Lisa Rowe Fraustino
Review: This book is full of fictional short stories. All there short stories had the same overall topic, dirty laundry of the family's past, present, and future. This book explains how not every family is perfect, and has someing shamful to hide from the rest of the world. This was a good book, some stories more engaging than others. Overall, I think this book lacked in interesting deatail, but included creative ideas for each story. I would recamend this anyone to read this book that needs a laugh, but more encouragement to the teenage readers.
Rating: 
Summary: 1/2 good, 1/2 not
Review: This book is put into lots and lots of short stories. I love many of the authors that contributed stories. Some of the stories were very good, such as: "The Secret of Life, According to Aunt Gladys" by Bruce Coville
"Waiting for Sebastian" by Richard Peck
"Passport" by Laurie Halse Anderson These were the ones I would have liked for them to be real books. But not an amazing book in a whole. If you're into the whole family traditions, family secrets thing, then I might recommend it. And also if you'd just read the good stories (above), then go for this book, but this one isn't a winner. ~Atalanta
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