Posted by: Laurie on: July 26, 2009
Ginoli, Jon. Deflowered. 2009 (March). 300p. Cleis Press, $16.95. (978-1-57344-343-2). Gr. 12. Ginoli helps fill the yawning void on the history of gay rock and roll with his unfailing honest and entertaining memoir as a founding member of the Pansy Division, the first out punk band to make it on the national scene. From his […]
Posted by: blogando on: July 26, 2009
Going, K.L. King of the Screwups. Harcourt, 2009. 978-0-15-206258-3. $17.00. Grades 8 to 12. K.L. Going’s latest novel is a study in stereotypes, and how they really don’t necessarily apply to everyone. Liam is an extremely popular high school senior with a extremely successful executive dad and former supermodel for a mom. Liam is more […]
Posted by: blogando on: July 16, 2009
Uhlig, Richard. Boy Minus Girl. 2008 (December). 246p. Knopf, $15.99. (978-0-375-83968-9). Gr. 8-10. Fourteen-year-old Lester’s sole goal in life is to be successful with girls, but even the tips he reads in The Seductive Man can’t help him with his friend Charity, who reveals that she is a lesbian, and Regina, who uses him to get […]
Posted by: blogando on: July 16, 2009
Rapp, Adam. Punkzilla. 2009. 244p. Candlewick, $16.99. (978-0-7636-3031-7). Gr. 8-10. On his way from Portland to Tennessee, where his gay older brother is dying of cancer, 14-year-old Jamie (aka Punkzilla) writes a series of letters about his adventures and his feelings regarding their dysfunctional family. Jamie’s personality and background are revealed through his details and […]
Posted by: blogando on: July 16, 2009
Polacco, Patricia. In Our Mother’s House. 2009. unp. Philomel, $17.99. (978-0-399-25076-7). Gr. 1-3. Although the family of three children and two parents seem like any other family on the block, filled with love and respect, one woman doesn’t accept them because the two parents are both women. The narrator of the story from her adoption […]
Posted by: blogando on: July 16, 2009
Park, Judith. YSquare Plus. 2008 (December). 192p. Yen Press, $10.99. (978-0-7595-2927-4). Gr. 9-12. Yagate tries to get his friend Yoshitaka help him catch the man of his dreams, but his friend Chana has her eye on the same guy, handsome college student Ra-Myun. The story shows the value of friendship, and the love triangles among […]
Posted by: blogando on: July 16, 2009
Garsee, Jeannine. Say the Word. 2009. 360p. Bloomsbury, $16.99. (978-1-599990-333-0). Gr. 11-12: The “perfect” Shawna Gallagher finds her life turned upside down when she is 17 after her estranged lesbian mother dies and she discovers a family in the mother’s partner and two sons. The book covers a lot of ground—religion (Shawna is Roman Catholic […]
Posted by: blogando on: July 16, 2009
Crisis: 40 Stories Revealing the Personal, Social, and Religious Pain and Trauma of Growing Up Gay in America. Ed. Mitchell Gold with Mindy Drucker. 2008. 369p. Greenleaf Book Group Press, $23.95. (978-1-929774-10-4). Gr. 11-12: Coming-out stories from 40 Americans—many of them activists and politicians—show that attitude, not homosexuality, is not the problem in our society. […]
Posted by: blogando on: July 16, 2009
Collins, Pat Lowery. Hidden Voices: The Orphan Musicians of Venice. 2009. 345p. Candlestick, $17.99. (978-0-7636-3917-4). Ages 12+: In the early 1700s a teenage girl suffers from her unrequited love for another girl in the Ospedale della Pieta, an orphanage renowned for its extraordinary musical program. Although the love is not referred to specifically as being […]