Last time I reviewed a book of short stories, I complained that the stories felt unfinished or unresolved. This book has the opposite problem: The resolutions are too tidy. Almost every story opens with a major problem, which is then easily resolved in 10 to 20 pages. Sons forgive fathers, longstanding feuds between extended family members are resolved, and (I kid you not) it turns out that the kids get to keep the puppy after all. Some of the stories in this anthology rise above the others, notably the ones by Orson Scott Card, Margaret Blair Young, and Sharon Downing Jarvis, but most of them are too trite to be worthwhile. ( )