A Book Review Starring "Lost Boi" by Sassafras Lowrey

The short version:
Imagine the Peter Pan fairy tale reimagined with Pan as a genderqueer leader of homeless genderqueer kids living in their abandoned warehouse Neverland and engaging in leather play. Pan finds Wendi, an orphan living in a group home, and invites her to come be Mommy to the lost bois of Neverland.

The long version:
Let me preface my review by saying Lost Boi is my first foray into genderqueer fiction. After meeting some readers outside the library who asked about queer fiction, it compelled me to do a little digging about a genre that I'd been thinking about only in a very casual way.

My first tack was to look online for queer booklists but soon discovered that much in the way of "queer booklists" used the term "queer" as an umbrella term to include LGBT and Q. I knew I was really on the hunt for genderqueer, or non-binary, and found much fewer lists, much less lists geared toward Young Adult literature. Like the emergence of Transgender Young Adult Fiction three or so years ago, you can feel we're at the birth of a new genre and it shows in how few prominent genderqueer titles there are being published (which is to say I don't necessarily include self-published or e-published books in this group).

Now for Lost Boi: dark and compelling, original, explicit, not for the faint or younger reader. Lowrey does a fantastic job of establishing and maintaining hir own unique tone that posits fairy tale into a very adult world that's replete with homelessness, drug use, S/M and leather play not to mention graphic sex and bondage. Yet she's created an adult fairy tale language full of splendid imagery and detail that establishes this very specific world and people. Not plot heavy, more a memory tale told from one of lost boi's perspectives and is heavy on place and character description.

While not a traditional narrative in which we would find characters described and developed over the course of the story, ze manages to draw some great empathy for hir characters while sticking to hir brand of storytelling. Hir characters were sympathetic while maintaining their hard earned edges. The few glimpses we get about the characters' backstories are specific, brutal and concrete and suffice to paint a vivid portrait of the people we meet along the way.

While it's cataloged as Adult Fiction at my library, and rightly so, the story certainly has an audience with older young adults (let's not get started on the New Adult terminology that sort of drives me nuts and leads me to a tangent that involves advocating for the expanded definition of "Young Adult"). The story's focus is all on young adults likely ranging in age from mid-teens to twenties (Lowrey does an excellent job of, among other things, using ambiguity throughout: encompassing a variety of details such as age and not limited to gender, which seemed to me a salient point, if I were going to draw conclusions). At my library, for example, we have a significant contingent of homeless LGBT patrons who might be quite familiar with much of the darker or brutal aspects throughout the story.

Lowrey also did a fantastic job when it came to hir usage of genderqueer terminology. For someone who had never read any genderqueer fiction, I was able to understand and navigate the ambiguity and complexity of genderqueer vocabulary.  In reading and contemplating hir work I visited, and encourage others to visit, her website, to give readers like myself the vocabulary she, as a genderqueer writer, uses to identify herself. While I'm certainly at the beginning of genderqueer fiction reading, having her website gave me a much needed basic vocabulary to describe and discuss both hir work and perhaps genderqueer fiction overall going forward.

Looking forward to seeing what genderqueer fiction has in its future. We are, after all, only at the beginning.

Playlists For Young Adult Novels

We are knee deep in "Read To The Rhythm" our music and rhythm themed Summer Reading Club theme. And though here in California the school year begins in the middle of summer, I'm going to ride the summer wave all the way into September, when it remains hot as hell with only the distant cool breezes of Halloween at night to remind us that we do indeed have an autumn around here.

This year's Summer Reading Club theme is the jackpot for this Mama (that's me in the third person, as I'm due with the second kid any moment now).  It combines my love of discovering new tunes with my love of young adult literature.

And I discovered my favorite way to combine my love of both is to create (and beg my teen patrons to join me in creating) music playlists inspired by young adult novels! You can take your playlists in any direction you like.

I chose to create Ipod inspired playlists like these. But you could use simple clip art of boomboxes or paste a list with the book image onto a CD painted black (to resemble an old school lp) or print song/artist titles onto music notes, cut them out and paste them onto the books themselves.

Point is, you've got options.







What's the appeal for our contingent of Reluctant YA Librarians, you ask? On the face of it, this requires way too much initiate and effort. True. BUT. Apparently I'm not alone in my love for book-inspired playlists because there are a bevy of Young Adult Authors who have created and posted their own playlists comprised of songs that inspired them while they were writing their novels.

Samples of author-created playlists 

AUTHOR-CREATED PLAYLISTS

Book Riot's (always a great, underappreciated resource) February, 2015 list of some pretty hot authors and links to their playlists.

Francesca Lia Block created a soundtrack for her groundbreaking Weetzie Bat.

Kirstin Conn-Mills created a playlist for her music-themed book "Beautiful Music For Ugly Children" on playlist.net, a site that's all about creating personal playlists.

Over at "The Unofficial Addiction Book Fan Club" (I'm still trying to digest the name of the site) they have the motherlode of author-created playlists.

And over at epicreads.com they have kindly culled all the music references from Michelle Falkoff's 2015 novel "Playlist For The Dead".

A Book Review Starring "Juniors" by Kaui Hart Lemmings

(this is a review of an Advanced Reader Copy)

The Short Version:
Part Hawaiian Lea Lane is the new junior at private, privileged Punahou School on Oahu, Hawaii. After her actress mother accepts a role on a TV show shooting on the island, they return to the island Lea only knew as a kid. This time she's the new girl, struggling to fit in among these beautiful, wealthy teens with her best friend from childhood, Danny, her only true friend. But when her mother accepts an offer from an old friend to move into the guest house on their estate, Lea gravitates to her mother's friend's kids, brother and sister Will and Whitney, and finds herself wanting to be accepted into their world, unaware of the consequences.

The Long Version:
Let me preface my review by saying I loved Hemming's debut novel, "The Descendants" and also the movie it was based on. Her acerbic wit (I'm a big fan of acerbic) and great dramatic flow made her first adult novel engrossing and endearing. She had a flare for great younger characters, their behavior and mannerisms and way of speaking, and wrote one of my favorite literary young adults, the secondary character of Sid.

This is Hemming's first young adult novel, and another, equally endearing version of Sid exists here in the form of secondary character Danny. Hemming's characters are what drive her story here too, when the plotting feels otherwise predictable and familiar, you hook your wagon to main character Lea, identifying with her adolescent insecurities and verbal stumbling.

Juniors is at it's heart a teenage melodrama about trying to fit in and be accepted. It's about that particular year in high school when you've been around belong enough to not be new and unaware of the social petrie dish but haven't yet experimented with the confidence of being on the cusp of graduation and leaving for parts unknown. The strength of her writing is in depicting many of the insecurities and traits of teenage girls: the competitiveness, the self-doubt and self-deprecation, cutting one another up behind their backs, jealousy. In Lea she's done a great job in personifying those qualities, even when you wish she'd wake up even a little before the last thirty pages.

The book succeeds in being a pretty textbook melodrama, it moves you, you know you're being emotionally manipulated but don't mind because the author is pretty confident in moving you along (even when you know exactly where you're going). That's not necessarily a bad thing. The result is an enjoyable, quick read that slightly elevates the teen melodrama with wit, some decent character development and, by the end, an endearing ending that speaks to how teens grow a little more and understand a little more a little at a time.

Displays for the Reluctant Librarian: "By The Book" Display Courtesy of the NY Times Review of Books

In my second installment of Displays For the Reluctant Librarian I'd like to nominate "By The Book" a weekly installment that appears in the The New York Sunday Times Book Review. Each week a different author or celebrity (usually someone who has a new book out or has been in the news of late) answers a series of questions that revolve around reading that always include a number of authors and titles they're either reading or recommending.

Almost all libraries subscribe to the New York Times. And if your's happens to not, you can always download and print the weekly column from the website. You can search the database of past featured guests or print the most current installment. After that it's just a matter of searching your catalog for titles written by the featured guest and titles said guest either mentions by title or author. Like thus:

It doesn't require you create signage, it promotes titles that may not have circulated recently and it can be constantly refreshed as you either run out of books to display or choose to change every week (we change ours weekly with every new edition of the Book Review).

Most weeks I can not only find a minimum of three books mentioned in the article that we own in our library collection to display but I also see at least one of those books circulate as a result.

A Book Review Starring "Double Exposure" by Bridget Birdsall

The short version:
Alyx was born interex. After a traumatic bullying event in her native Walnut Grove, California prompts she and her mother to relocate to her mother's hometown of Milwaukee, Wisconsin Alyx aksi makes the decision that she identifies as a girl despite her parents' decision to raise her as a boy and allowing her to choose later. Knowing she can't undergo surgery that would allow her to fully identify as a girl for two years, Alyx changes her last name at her new school and is off to a new start despite feelings of PTSD from the bullying. When she joins the basketball team jealousy from a teammate threatens to unravel all that she's started to build.

The long version:
The book had its strengths and weaknesses.

Strengths: the essential plotting of the story was well-constructed, the technical writing was efficient and descriptive and resulted in an easy to read story that moved quickly and kept the reader involved. The plot points became fraught with tension with the implication that at many points in the story her history would be revealed. The PTSD from the bullying event was effectively woven through the story which served to additionally heighten the tension.

Alyx's family's response from her grandfather, uncle and mother, to her change in gender identity was heartfelt and believable and complex and the majority of the secondary characters were refreshing in their humanity.

Weaknesses: I couldn't help getting tripped up in Alyx's character development. Here was a character who had lived her first fifteen years as a boy, however uncomfortably, yet her transition to living as a girl was in some ways surprisingly easy. There was no implication she'd been preparing for it in any way during childhood. She could identify other girls' cup sizes in the locker room, she had no issues with adapting to make-up and dressing as a girl (despite some small insecurities if she's passing), she adapted to social situations with relative (not total) ease. There was a complexity to the minutia of her transition that was somewhat glossed over or went unaddressed, in my opinion.

For all the nicely realized secondary characters, Alyx's nemesis is a bit too evil (and thus one dimensional) for my liking, especially within the context of so many other secondary characters who were not. It seemed like an easy device to make Pepper evil with a stunted character arc and a dissatisfying resolution in the end. Trying not to reveal too much, the later plot points that threaten Alyx's future seemed more nuanced (with again sympathetic, humane secondary characters) than Pepper.

I also wished the author didn't feel it necessary to throw in details that were more interesting to her but seemed incongruous and distracting to the plot. Trying to throw in facts about Wisconsin Governor Walker breaking up unions or Alyx repeating factual information about intersex teens she learned from her doctor, for example, not essential in my opinion.

With the lack of young adult fiction featuring intersex characters (though it's nice to see the numbers growing), this was the first I read thus far that provided an engaging story and characters. The basketball subplot and sports detail (which I think can be hard to write and incorporate into narrative) was evenly woven into Alyx's story in a balanced way that was both easy to read and didn't create two disparate plots.

In the end, an enjoyable and engaging read that broaches a tough subject matter with ease and sensitivity.

Displays For The Reluctant Librarian: Upcoming Movies Based on Young Adult Novels

I work in a very large library system.

We have well over fifty branches, all of which we are fortunate enough to have a position for a Young Adult Librarian. We're very lucky. Not every library system has a designated Young Adult Librarian, much less at every branch. But like many library systems not every librarian feels a strong vocation for their assigned audience. Some are older, don't relate a ton to teens and teen literature and that's alright.

When presenting program ideas to my fellow Young Adult Librarians recently I tried to pitch program ideas related to my specific theme with this target audience of Reluctant Librarians in mind. I stressed the easy aspect. Easy to learn, easy to program, easy to demonstrate to kids and teens. Easy.

Which then got me to thinking about other easy displays and programs for the Reluctant Librarian. Thus my new label.

In today's first installment of displays and programs for the Reluctant Librarian I present: Upcoming Movies Based on Young Adult Novels.

We are so lucky that with the success of young adult novel-to-film adaptations we have an ongoing list of titles with which to throw up an easy display. And as we all know whenever any book-to-film adaptation nears release, whether that be children's, young adult or adult fiction, we always see an uptick in circulation of that title. At the same time, I was surprised to discover I couldn't find a resource online that listed only Young Adult novel-to-film adaptations with their release dates.

So I'm going for it.

UPCOMING YOUNG ADULT NOVELS-TO-MOVIES SPRING 2015 EDITION:
                         

Me, Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews     

June 6

Paper Towns by John Green                                  

July 24

Fallen by Lauren Kate                                                                               

July 30  

Scorch Trials by James Dashner                                                                 

September 18

Viktor Frankenstein by Mary Shelley                                                     

(A new take on Frankenstein from Igor's perspective. And Igor is played by Harry Potter!)

October 2

Mockingjay Part 2 by Suzanne Collins                                                        

November 20

The Martian by Andy Weir

(Alex Award winner)                                                                    

November 25                    

5^th Wave by Rick Yancey                                                                          

January 29

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs          

March 4

Batman vs. Superman                                                   

March 25

FOR REAL (POST-PRODUCTION OR COMPLETED) BUT WITHOUT RELEASE DATES

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith

Room by Emma Donoghue (Alex Award winner)

Sold by Patricia McCormick

A Book Review Starring "We Were Here" by Matt de la Pena

The short version:
Stockton, CA native Miguel Castaneda is sentenced to live at a boys home in San Jose for an undisclosed offense. There he meets violent loner Mong who convinces him and his roommate Rondell to break out and make their way to Mexico with the promise that they will find jobs at a beach resort. Per the judge's orders Miguel keeps a journal of his experiences, which he continues of his own volition long after feeling obligated to do so.

The long version:
Turns out Miguel (and de la Pena) are really quite excellent at this journal writing thing.

The conceit of the journal as the basis for describing the unfolding events gives the story a real sense of urgency(due in no small part to de la Pena's incredibly storytelling skills). Everything rings true, including the plot developments but also how Miguel interprets and responds to other people and circumstances along the way.

de la Pena has really written a triumphant, engrossing story of what it means to be a teenage boy (with all the masculinity issues that go along with it), what it means to be a first generation Mexican-American, what it means to be mixed race. He covers all those bases with subtle, entertaining language that speaks in a voice of this particular kid. Miguel is funny, smart (but within the context of the character, as opposed to the author's voice) and yet still maintains his innocence and vulnerability and the brazenness and impulsiveness that comes with being a fifteen year old boy.

He not only has created a main character who makes you turn pages, he also creates secondary characters of equal pathos and individuality who you feel for from the start. Mong and Rondell are so wonderfully and painfully realized with such great depth of character. Your heart will break for all of them.

At the same time, de la Pena has realized a plot that could have easily gone awry but never does. A road trip in which three newly homeless, troubled kids try to make from San Jose to the border could have easily devolved into episodic plot points without necessarily evolving in intensity. Even some of the trickier plot points, of which there are a couple, are handled with authenticity and ring true instead of devices.

The book has its necessary violence and explicit language, all well in keeping with the story de la Pena tells. And the story he tells is pretty special.

A Book Review Starring "Everything Changes" by Samantha Hale

The short version:
Raven can't really figure out why she's not attracted to the guys at her school. But when she meets her best friend's older sister's college friend, Morgan, and learns she's an out lesbian she quickly discovers her attraction and embarks on her first real relationship.

The long version:
Sweet, compact, easy to read coming-out story. Well written with a straightforward plot and plain (in a good way) language that moves with ease and swiftness and clear, easy to relate to characters.

The characters might not be the most depthful, complex in the world, but Raven is written as someone who both gay and straight kids alike can relate to. Her obstacles in coming out, both internal and external, are familiar yet ring true. For example, her attraction to a college girl makes perfect sense in that a slightly older girl would have already gone through her own coming out process and feel more comfortable in a college setting in which she gets to define herself. By the end, the pathos earned through Raven's coming out to different friends and her parents is well earned based on the strength of the writing and genuinely heartfelt.

At under 200 pages and with such a straightforward and (did I say easy?) plot, this title would be a great choice to pull out for reluctant and avid readers alike, particularly girls looking for a coming-out experience to both reference and identify with.

Please, Dear Authors

Dear Authors,

I like you, and I want you to succeed, but I hate to be the one to tell you that if your novel contains any variation on the phrase:

"You don't get it, do you?"

or

"You just don't get it"

or

"You just don't get it, (insert character name here)"

that only bad things will come of it.

That phrase and all its variations are a crutch for when you don't know how to get to where you want to be. I say this because I've seen this phrase employed time and again when an author wants a character to see something and hasn't found another way to make them see it. For me, that phrase is the equivalent of flashing red sirens and is almost always indicative of other shortcomings as well.

Sincerely,
Your humble reader

Celebrating Gay Pride With Teens: Rainbow Mobiles

Everyone loves a rainbow. And everyone loves a mobile. Mobiles are a cheap, easy craft that can be accomplished within an hour and taken in a variety of directions.

The best thing about using the rainbow mobile to celebrate Gay Pride is you can go both general:

Or incorporate the full meaning of the Rainbow Flag into your mobile craft:

A Book Review Starring "I Was Here" by Gayle Forman

The short version:
When Cody's estranged best friend kills herself, Cody agrees to collect her things from college and comes to discover her best friend in ways she wasn't aware through her roommates, her computer and the life she'd created for herself.

The long version:
Engrossing from the start. Cody, as conceived by Forman, is a complex main character for young adult (in my opinion) in that she's not likeable or relatable from the start. And it doesn't help that the start is a dark place in which Cody is embodying a range of complex and unpleasant emotions in response to her friend's suicide. Resentment, detachment, confusion, these are the qualities that Cody first expresses when we meet her as she's processing her emotions.

One of Forman's strengths is her ability to write involving, subtle, relatively complex two-person drama in which the relationship is messy, filled with competing interests and emotions and the characters and their journeys are very human and, I'll say it again, messy. It's what I loved best about her two books "Just One Day" and "Just One Year", both of which I thought represented a leap in maturity and growth from her big (now) blockbuster "If I Stay" and follow-up "Where I Went".

You may not love Cody from the start, but you understand and identify with her as the book progresses, your heart aches for her as she processes not only her friend's reality but her own reality too. And in her male counterpart Ben McCallister, you get an equally complicated character who isn't all he appears to be and is refreshing when he's not the YA-Fantasy-Boyfriend material that I find in a fair amount of young adult fiction.

The book also continues a great trend in young adult literature focusing on 18+ characters and the post-high school experience. For years I've been excited to see the evolution of "Young Adult Literature" expand to include not only an audience that's over eighteen but characters and stories about those post-high school years told in thoughtful, contemplative ways that serve as that gray area between traditional YA and Adult Literature where books are getting longer and incorporating more complexity and/or mature themes.

That segment of literature that focuses on the 18-22 year old experience has been automatically shelved in Adult Fiction until recently. When we have started to see books with 18-25 year old protagonists appear on Young Adult shelves, many of those that have made an appearance are perceived or labeled as "New Adult", which in my mind are more romance-laden melodramas that may or may not contain more explicit sexual content. "New Adult" is tricky, not universally accepted genre in my opinion, and certainly not a division found on our library shelves. In my mind, "New Adult" is a genre and not an audience classification the way we segment our audiences between Children-Young Adult-Adult.

In seeing the audience for Young Adult expand beyond the long-assumed 12-18 year old audience, it seems natural that the content of YA has now begun to fill that gap with stories that both redefine Young Adult Literature and tell those stories in fresh, new ways. I Was Here is the epitome of that transformation within YA and I devoured it.

Celebrating Gay Pride With Teens: Rainbow Loom Gay Pride Rainbow Bracelets

If you've given it some thoughts and floss Friendship Bracelets are just too much for you, consider the Rainbow Loom Gay Pride Rainbow Bracelet. Rainbow Loom is still popular, the double fishtail-style bracelet is super easy to make and teach and the program is attractive to kids and teens alike.

Still super cheap.

A pack of 600 rubber bands with 24 C-clips are $2.99/each at Michael's, you'd need to purchase six bags to complete the colors of a rainbow. 

And the best part is you can make rainbow looms and hooks for free using basic library components:

-book donations that won't fit into your collection and are sure not to sell in the book sale

-pushpins

-a hammer

-paper clips

Hammer two pushpins into the edge of an unloved book one inch apart:

Then you'll break a paper clip to use as your hook (like I needed to show you):

Easiest bracelet ever! YouTube double fishtail rainbow loom instructions. The whole program can be done in under an hour.

Celebrating Gay Pride with Teens: Pride Rainbow Friendship Bracelets

Creating and executing craft programming for teens can be hard for some of us librarians.

You have to find a project you not only think you can do but also be able to teach to teens and pre-teens from ages 12ish-18ish. Add to that (the mistaken, in my opinion) belief that you have to complete this craft project in an hour. 

My feeling on the subject is that if you provide participants with detailed instructions for how to complete a craft project and it's clear and relatively attainable, you not only don't have to abide by the strict one hour rule but you're giving them the information to recreate and perfect upon that project again after the program is long over. Otherwise, it's just one-off entertainment that, more often than not, winds up in the trash shortly thereafter. I have a seven year old who attends library programs, so I feel I can say that with some authority.

Hence, the Pride Rainbow Friendship Bracelet!

Believe me, I know, friendship bracelets are hard. I've printed out and given up on countless friendship bracelet patterns for just that reason. Which is why I ALWAYS return to the chevron bracelet. There must be a reason why it's the only one I can competently do and so can you!

The best thing about Rainbow Bracelets is that they're universally loved and open to interpretation. Gay Pride. Pretty bauble. They're for everyone! And they're cheap! All you need are packets of floss which can be found at Michael's for $3.99/pack.

In the spirit of information sharing, here is a jpeg of my directions for making Pride Rainbow Friendship Bracelets.

AND if that's still too much. Consider variations on the Pride Rainbow Friendship Bracelets using the Rainbow Loom. You can make a loom for the double fishtail bracelets seen here with a few pushpins in cardboard, nails into discarded wood, or even plastic forks with the middle tongs bent in.

Project Runway: Unconventional Library Materials

Our library's potential participation in Los Angeles' Gay Pride Parade inspired me to imagine how we could celebrate libraries within the context of a rocking, flamboyant parade loaded with pageantry and humor.

Maybe I was in the midst of watching a Project Runway season at that moment but I thought what better way to embrace libraries than melding them with one of today's most iconic television shows that has a huge gay following and its signature Unconventional Challenge that makes an appearance every season challenging contestants to utilize on materials found in a hardware store or a candy store or construction sites for the components to design their creations with.

Only in this case I could be using ALL THOSE BOOK DONATIONS that never make it onto the shelves or don't sell at the book sales!

Sometimes my revelations are really only revelations to me. This may be one of those times. At first, the thought inspired me to troll Pinterest for examples of book page fashion. And what did I find!

Here are some of my favorites:

Between now and June I've made it my goal to start small and create simple, fun wearable creations using book materials from our big mountain of donations.

Unconventionally Library Challenge #1: Art Book Top Hat

A Book Review Starring "Bone Gap" by Laura Ruby

The short version:
Set in the rural farm town of Bone Gap, Illinois where the mysterious Polish Roza disappears from Bone Gap just as curiously as she arrived leaving 16 year old Finn feeling responsible for letting her leave with a strange man. While the people of Bone Gap including his older brother Sean don't believe him and feel certain she ran away, Finn must cope with his feelings of guilt over the knowledge that he allowed her to be kidnapped and becomes determined to find her.

The long version:
The best young adult novel I've read this year (granted the year is early, but still, I feel strongly on this subject).

What an original voice with a gorgeous sense of nature-inspired, highly visual imagery and thoughtful, layered characters. Ruby is a master at creating suspense both in terms of plot and character revelations. The writing is assured, absent of wasteful language or plotting.

She's able to create a realistic work of literary fiction and infuse it with elements of magical realism by being careful and measured with the fantasy elements. She plants the seeds slowly, convincingly, so that when it all comes out you're both prepared and engrossed and it doesn't come off as jarring or nonsensical or silly.

Ruby has done her homework on all sorts of subjects, from beekeeping and botany, to small farm town culture and life in rural Poland. That eye for detail creates rich settings, transporting the reader to places both real and fantastical. Yet she exercises restraint incorporating her knowledge into the plot and characters.

Stunning in its originality. I kept wondering about her potential influences (Alice Hoffman, Twin Peaks) yet still found her work to be entirely her own. I would be happy recommending this book to teens and adults alike.

Celebrating Gay Pride With Teens In the Library

In Los Angeles Gay Pride Month is in June. It's also the first month of most library Summer Reading Clubs (or as we here now call it "Summer Fun" so as to not alienate the not-so-gungho-readers from the other fun stuff happening in the branches) which makes it the perfect time to introduce an LGBTQ-themed craft or program for teens.

And what better way to do it than with RAINBOWS!

The Rainbow Flag has become synonymous with gay pride, diversity and equality for everyone. Aren't you glad such a universal symbol of smiles and happiness was usurped when it came time to plan LGBTQ-themed programming?

When I couldn't find a flyer or online resource I liked, I created a Rainbow Flag flyer that describes the history of the flag and the meaning of the colors using age-appropriate language. It looks exactly like this:

Now came the easy part. RAINBOW PROGRAMMING!

You don't need me to tell you about all the fun things you can do with rainbows. But in the event you adore me and am curious about some of the things I'm contemplating, check out my LGBTQ Teen Programming board on Pinterest:

https://www.pinterest.com/hillaryesta/lgbtq-kid-teen-programming/

More to come on some of the fun stuff I've got in mind to celebrate Gay Pride!

A Book Review Starring "Hold Tight, Don't Let Go" by Laura Rose Wagner

The short version:
In the aftermath of the devastating 2010 Haiti earthquake that destroys their home and kills their mother, 16 year old Magdalie and her "sister" Nadine must live with their uncle in a makeshift camp. When Nadine's American father sends for her, Nadine sort of promises to send for Magdalie. Left essentially on her own for the first time in her life, unable to attend school anymore, Magdalie must adapt to a new way of life while searching for a way to make money so she can join Nadine in America.

The long version:
How long ago must an historical event have occurred to constitute it being the basis for a novel of historical fiction?

I want to call this historical fiction (and I mean that in the best of ways) even though it takes place just five years ago. Wagner does an excellent job of integrating not only the larger events of the earthquake but the daily minutia of life after the earthquake into the narrative of the story. Sometimes when you read historical fiction you get that kitchen-sink feeling that the author was so jazzed to learn his or her stuff that she threw it all in the book. But there is a nice sense of restraint here, Wagner illustrates the devastation of the earthquake as it appears to this 16 year old girl, not in any overwritten, all-encompassing encyclopedic way. She's able to express the craziness and devastation, but also the tedium of having nowhere to go and nothing to do, no jobs or home to attend to.

Aspects of the narrative felt like a first novel. Some of the plot points were very pointed, not terribly nuanced, but still effective. Later in the novel there's a pleasant romance subplot that doesn't feel entirely necessary.

But none of those things detract from the novel overall, in which Wagner has created an engaging main character whom you want to follow and see what happens to her all the while getting an intimate look into a part of the world that feels so far away.

Quite a commendable first novel, particularly given such a large undertaking of melding a traditional narrative with historical events set in (what was for me) an unfamiliar culture.

A Book Review Starring "The Crossover" by Kwame Alexander

The short version:
Told in verse, 12 year old twins Josh and Jordan Bell are starters on their junior high school basketball team. But when Jordan gets close to the new girl at school, Josh feels a rift growing between them that grows as their team moves closer to the championships.

The long version:
Endearing and charming middle grade read. Alexander does an excellent job of describing the action and minutia of basketball with vernacular that's accessible and still feels true to a 12 year old voice. The familial relationships between Josh, his brother and his parents are quite lovely.

While the main plot revolves around basketball, it's also a book about how the rules of basketball apply to life. Alexander intersperses the narrative with "basketball rules" that even those not acquainted with the game will have no trouble identifying as life lessons for a middle grader.

The plot takes an unexpected darker turn, unexpected even though Alexander sets the reader up for it quite well. While surprising in a way I wasn't prepared for, this wasn't my novel to write. Maybe I was just too involved, a testament to the writing, but Alexander manages the darker turn and the ensuing conclusion with eloquence and grace.

A Book Review Starring "Game" by Walter Dean Myers

The short version:
New York City senior Drew is looking forward to the second half of basketball season. He's the starting guard at James Baldwin Academy and is hoping a winning season will translate into an athletic scholarship. But he'll have to adapt to the unexpected when a white transfer student gets a starting position and he's forced to consider his coach's team ethic even when he'd rather shoot and play individual ball.

The long version:
My first Walter Dean Myers book!

And what a great first book to start with. As you read his slim book (218 pages) you feel you're in trusted hands. He writes with a confidence and ease that masks the work he put into it.

Drew is an engaging main character you want to follow from the start. He's smart, interesting and well-liked, yet young and still has things to learn, especially when it comes to playing team basketball and adapting to other personalities. His first-person narration is very entertaining and a clear testament to the writer as Myers infuses his narrative with the vernacular of an African-American teen that's accessible and flows well throughout and at the same time is insightful within the mindset of a teen character.

There's a lot of basketball narration to the story. I always find description of sports events hard, even if you're familiar with the sport. Myers has lengthly narrations of multiple games, he not only creates narratives that are visual and fast paced like a game, but does so from Drew's point of view with a street and basketball slang mixed in that comes across seamlessly and makes for an easy read.

I couldn't help reflecting on Myer's New York Times editorial from last summer in which he reflected upon his own childhood growing up without books that were written about and for kids like him. You can't help but feel as if he wrote this book for his younger self, and all the younger selves of him out there today. "Game" was written in 2008 and there's some references to the internet or cell phones that put it in a present day historical context, but Myers also manages to give a nice sense of timelessness to it so you can see the book aging well for kids ten years down the line.

Regarding the size and page length. Myers manages to do a lot in 218 pages. It's a compact book, both in page number and size (maybe it's 8x6 inches, eyeballing it alone) and I think it makes for an inviting book, particularly when it comes to boys who aren't of the million-page-fantasy-tome reading variety. And I think there's something to be said for a book that doesn't physically intimidate a reluctant or occasional reader.

A Book Review Starring "Little Peach" by Peggy Kern

The short version:
Michelle, 14, finds herself alone in the world after the death of her caretaker grandfather, and abandonment by her drug addicted mother. Clutching half an address of a former friend, she boards a bus to New York with the last of her money and soon finds herself befriended by Devon upon arrival. With few options, Michelle takes him up on his hospitality and promise of family, only to be quickly indoctrinated into child prostitution alongside with Baby and Kat, the other members of his "family."

The long version:
A dark, well-researched and plausible tale of human sex trafficking. Kern has not only written a sure handed, tight (for it's a slim 190 pages) drama but it moves quickly and provides a vivid, explicit rendering of a way of life most of us don't have much first hand exposure to. Michelle is a sympathetic, well drawn main character you empathize with from the start. There is much in the way of drug abuse, rape, profanity, pedophilia and physical abuse and while it's told with a strong degree of explicitness, all are used within the context of the story.

Perfect for fans of Sapphire's Push, Melvin Burgess's Smack, Patricia McCormick's Cut, and Ellen Hopkins novels.

(Review of an Advanced Reader Copy)