Joyce did it for Dublin, of course. Edward P. Jones set out to do something similar with the searing stories in Lost in the City - to give the people of Washington a literary existence, to show their humanity and give them a voice.

Devoted readers of young-adult fiction already know about Walter Dean Myers, who has published more than 50 books for young people. And they may well know about the Harlem neighborhood he brought to life in his 2000 story collection, 145th Street. In this sparkling new collection he goes back to that block and takes another look around.

In a recent interview, Myers said that readers who wrote him letters about the first book most often asked about the characters who were in love. He decided to return to Harlem and, in 15 new stories, put the focus on love.

The Evans family is at the center of this book, which is fitting. The Evanses run a beauty parlor called the Curl-E-Que, which serves as a social center of their neighborhood, a place where people spend time and talk.

With all that talking going on. we can't help but hear that Myers has a gift for dialogue; it's no surprise that he's a playwright, too. The comic story "What Would Jesus Do" is a play, essentially. Myers deftly paints a whole scene and two distinct personalities using only an amusing back-and-forth between Mama Evans and Cheryl, the busybody girl who's getting her hair done.

Myers knows how young people talk, and he knows how girls talk. In story after story he demonstrates an acute understanding of the hopes and worries young women have, the way girls talk about boys when there aren't any around, and the different ways different girls negotiate the world.

There's Letha, the girl at the center of what might be the most moving story in the collection, "Madonna." She's a struggling single mom who knows exactly which store sells oatmeal for 57 cents instead of 69. She feels ugly; she tells us she's "nothing special." But when a young artist she knows from the neighborhood paints her portrait, she's able to see, through his eyes, a beauty she didn't know was there.

And there's shy, rigid Noee Evans, the only character who has two stories devoted to her. Perhaps she's the one Myers relates to the most. She's certainly the one whose awkward existence I felt the most keenly. "At times I was lonely, but it was a bearable loneliness, the way I imagined that a star, brilliant in a Milky Way of other stars, would be lonely." Lovely.

Young guys are given a voice, too. "The Man Thing" is about a teenager who knows it's time to be a man, now that he has a girl he loves and a 2-year-old son. He just has to figure out what that really means.

"The Real Deal" treads similar ground, but in a wry and surprising way. And "Marisol and Skeeter" - about a young guy and girl who, together, make a solid team - absolutely killed me with its sweet and hopeful message.

Some of the stories take a comic, almost slapstick, look at the tangles men and women get into when it comes to romantic love. Others are about the real problems that can hit even the happiest of families. In "Jump at the Sun," a teenage girl from a tight-knit family struggles to understand how her once-vibrant older brother could have gotten addicted to drugs. "It was as if someone had come to our house and had removed the plug that held in that sense of togetherness and joy that made us a family."

The short-story format proves a good way into a neighborhood, enabling Myers to visit a number of people and touch on a variety of emotions. But I found myself wishing I could spend more time with certain characters, particularly Noee, who begins to overcome her shyness - or at least work with it - in order to spend time with a guy from her writing class. Will they fall in love? Are they meant to be together? I wanted Myers to tell me more about them.

Maybe I should write him a letter.