There aren’t many rules in the primer for gang kids, but they all count: When he’s down, kick for the head and groin. Avoid cops. Play it cool. Those are the rules that govern Harlan Ellison’s collection, Children of the Streets. Ellison understands them as an insider: he ran with a gang, reported on the experience, and survived. Here’s what he has to say about that time:

This book was first published when I was twenty-seven years old. As I write this new introduction, I am one month away from my seventieth birthday. What the world was like, when I wrote these stories, is as lost and arcane as the prime time of the Ottoman Empire. No self-respecting vato loco or gangbanger would even consider using a zip gun (if, in fact, he had ever heard of such an implement); give him an Uzi or an AK-47. Or, even better, an Austrian 9mm Steyr MPi 81 with a 25- or 32-shot detachable box. Switchblade? Fuggedaboutit.

If you can resist reading the rest of his introduction to Children of the Streets, you’re endowed with heroic will power.

E-Reads is happy to publish the first e-book edition of this book, as well as some thirty other Harlan Ellison classics. Look for print editions to follow not long from now.

RC