Five Carat Soul by James McBride

I am not a huge fan of the short story as a genre and so the reason that I read this collection of short stories is because it was on the list of recommended reading from Obama.  He is a great reader, and I have almost uniformly enjoyed the books on his reading list.  This one did not change my idea about short stories but it is well worth reading.  I like what one reviewer said of this collection, that it is strategically doleful.
A sort of jazzy, generous spirit animates this story collection. The best stories here feature a teenage band called Five-Carat Soul Bottom Bone Band. Set in a poor Pennsylvania neighbourhood called The Bottom, they are narrated by a kid named Butter with a kind of bemused innocence that gives the stories much of their “aw, shucks” humour. The stories also feature telepathic zoo animals, a zealous toy collector and an eavesdropping Abraham Lincoln. All these disparate voices could lend the collection a circus-like feel, but McBride succeeds in tempering absurdity with insight, and camp with poignancy.