The Moth presents All these wonders True stories about facing the unknown

The Moth's 20-year retrospective contains all the hope, sadness, triumphs, and tribulations that have defined the pioneering live reading series since its modest debut in 1997.Devoted fans of The Moth Radio Hour know that the true stories told live onstage without notes in venues located throughout the world consistently pack an emotional wallop. It's refreshing to see that those same stories are almost as powerful in print as they are in person. For instance, the story of a child soldier from Sierra Leone casually besting his New York City pals in a teenage game of paintball is almost as hilarious and heartbreaking as if author Ishmael Beah were in the room telling you the tale himself. Christof Koch's stirring memoir about his time working with famed scientist Francis Crick right before his death is no less impactful on paper. Similarly, Nadia Bolz-Weber's account of her life-changing experience on the road to Jericho ably conveys the intensity of the panic attack that taught her how to be vulnerable around her fellow travelers ("twenty Super-Nice Lutherans from Wisconsin"). Some storiese.g., Tig Notaro's "R2, Where Are You?"do lose a little something being restricted to the page, but that likely has more to do with editing for space than a missed performance. Other stories, like Tomi Reichental's absolutely shattering account of how she narrowly escaped death at the infamous Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, actually benefit from the buffer the written word provides. Other contributors include Louis C.K., Adam Mansbach, Jane Green, John Turturro, Jessi Klein, Meg Wolitzer, and Gil Reyes. Overall, the two decades of the Moth remain as entertaining and powerful off-stage as they were onstage. As Neil Gaiman writes in his foreword, "the Moth teaches us not to judge by appearances. It teaches us to listen. It reminds us to empathize." Here's to at least 20 more years. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

MY GRANFATHER'S SHOES Christian Garland   I'm gonna let y'all know now, I'm a preacher's kid. I grew up in the church. I swear I have only missed, like, two Sundays out of my whole sixteen years of life. My grandfather, he was a minister. And he was my best friend. He was the person I could talk to about anything and everything. I'm sixteen now, but when I was ten, I wanted to be the kid who had anything anybody else had. I was the friend that, like, if you got the new video game--I had that video game but also another one . . . that was just about to come out . . . that you ain't know about. So one day my friend came outside. He had these ugly, ugly sneakers on. I was like, "Yo, bro, I got those, man! That ain't nothing . . . I already got those." He was like, "A'ight . . . prove it!" I didn't have them. So my grandfather, being a minister, he gets the money out of the collection plate. And I knew where he put the money. So I went upstairs, and I took the money. I did. It was like two hundred dollars. And I went on Third Avenue in the Bronx, and I bought the sneakers, and I went home.  I walk in, and my grandfather, he's going off. He found out the money was missing. He was screaming at my uncle, "Why would you steal my money?!" My uncle's like, "I didn't touch your money. I don't know what you're talking about." I should tell y'all that all the way home walking, I was talking junk. I'm with my cousin, and I'm like, "Yeah, when my grandpa asks me where I got the sneakers from . . . I'm gonna lie. I'm gonna say I got 'em from you." And he's like, "Ain't gonna work." So I walk in, and my grandpa's going off . . . and I froze. I was like, Oh . . . he mad. And he said, "Christian! Come here!" I was like, "Huh?" He said, "Where'd you get those sneakers?" And I was like, "Funny story . . . uh . . . I went in your briefcase and got the money . . . yeah . . ." He said, "How much money did you take?" I said, "About two hundred dollars." "WHAT?!" "About two hundred dollars." "Boy, are you crazy ?! Boy!" And then he said some very hard words. He said, "I will never be able to trust you again, but one day you are going to repay me for the money you took. I don't know how, I don't know when. But you are going to repay me." I cried. It was terrible. Fast-forward a couple of years. I'm a drummer. I played the drums on the radio for Al Sharpton. And he paid me good. And have you ever had that thing where you start thinking about something and your mind goes [ claps loudly ].  That's when I was like, I remember Grandpa said I'm gonna repay him. So I didn't get McDonald's for two weeks in a row. And with that, plus my money from drumming, I got the money to pay him back. I put it in an envelope, and I took my grandpa out to dinner at his favorite place: Crown Donut on 161st Street. At first he was skeptical that I was taking him out. He said, "You got somebody pregnant?" I was only thirteen, I don't know what he was talking about. I was like, "No, of course not ! Don't be absurd. " So we got our food, and I had on a coat--it was cold; it was early November. And so I took the money out of my side pocket and put it on the table. I was like, "It's all there." And he looked, and he said, "What's this?" I said, "You said you didn't know how, but I was gonna repay you. And I just repaid you." And we started crying and hugging. He said, "Aw, I love you." "I love you, too, Grandpa." And I'm just glad that I got the chance to fulfill what my grandfather said, and pay him back and earn his trust back, because he said, "You know what? You surprised me. I'm proud of you. I trust you again." And that was the last thing he ever told me, because two weeks after that he died. I found out he didn't get to spend the money. And I was mad at my grandma, because I knew she had the money. I didn't know what she did with it. And so a couple of days go by; we made funeral arrangements, I still didn't know where the money went.  But I went to go view the body, and my grandma, she stopped me, she said, "Chris?" I said, "Yes, ma'am." She said, "You see that suit and them shoes he's got on?" I said, "Yes, ma'am." She said, "Your money paid for that." And the expression on my face was like, What?! I was so proud that, number one: I got my trust back from my grandpa, and number two, he was stuntin' in the suit and shoes I bought him. Excerpted from The Moth Presents All These Wonders: True Stories about Facing the Unknown All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.