Judy Blume on the brain

The Year of Freaking Out by Sarah Walker was an awesome find for me at about 15... A book about a teen being with a massive crush on her friend. I was obsessed with this book long before coming out even to myself - I remember getting butterflies in my stomach reading about kim and rachel!! It made everything so much better when I got a Rachel of my own a year or so later!!

I spent my time reading Nora Roberts, Sandra Brown and the like... I kid you not. By age 13 I knew all about straight sex and heaving bosoms thanks to these women. Either that or I was reading straight YA books. Well, apart from that one time I found Judy Blume's Summer Sisters in my (might I add, convent) school library when I was about 13 or 14. A couple months, and many reads later, Summer Sisters just magically vanishes from the library! I never got to read about Vix and Caitlin again.

But it's only been recently that I've been interested in gay YA books - I'm trying to relive and re-experience my closeted gay teenage years, obviously. There are lots of great gay young adult fiction books, but few openly overtly lesbian ones, at least that I've come across.

when i was a kid, my 1st anime comic book was Ranma 1/2, which is about a boy who is 'cursed' with turning into a girl when he touches cold water. after that, i was instantly hooked into anime and manga- so many have such openmindedness about being gay, and then when they get translated into english, it's a little harder to find because they explain it away.

other than that, Perks of Being a Wallflower was a favorite, with Patrick and his football bf. YA fiction has more and more glbt fiction coming out, its awesome. 

I read every Judy Blume book I could get my hands on when I was younger. When Here's to You Rachel Robinson came out right after I read Just As Long As We're Together, I was excited to find out that she would be signing hardcover copies at my favorite Barnes and Nobles. I dressed up like I was going to church. I told her how big of a fan I was and I read every one of her books. She's probably heard that line a million times but it meant so much to me when she wrote in my book, Dear Joy, Keep on reading, Love Judy. I still have that book and my love of reading!

If you like the Tamora Pierce series I recommend Arrows of the Queen/Arrows Flight/Arrows Fall by Mercedes Lackey. They are in a similar vein and even better when it comes to gender not being an issue in relationships.

Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden is the book I wish I had read as a teenager, but I didn't even know gay books existed until I came out in my mid-twenties. Annie on My Mind was actually published around the time I started high school, but at that time and place, it would have been difficult to find even if searching for it.

I love Tamora Pierce and Francesca Lia Block. Alanna got me through being bullied at high school for being different and clever. I still have all of TP's books, and quite a few of FLB's too. Oh, and a copy of Am I Blue. Aside from TP, I mostly read fantasy novels aimed at adults like Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, but I did read a few Judy Blume and Ann Fine books along the way. My favourite Judy Blume was Summer Sisters, for a book aimed at teenage girls it was really raunchy. I still read books aimed at teens, sometimes they're better than adult ones at dealing with real issues, like Melvin Burgess' Junk (teenage drug addicts).

w as always a favourite of mine too!

i loved her books and always loved that her various relationships with guys never clouded her judgment and actions! also that she always surprised them with how good she was and from then on they respected her skills!

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"laugh, laugh on at all the dreams that i the dreamer dare to weave,
laugh on, that i still belive in the people, for I still belive in life"

I loved the Lioness quartet! I read so much during my Summers in high school. I read Shakespeare. I read The Sisterhood of The Traveling Pants, anything by Sharon Creech, Lois Lowry's stuff, and The 10th Kingdom. When I was reading I watched soaps, both American and Spanish.

'Hey Dollface' by Deborah Hautzig. I remember finding this one in my small local library and being almost too embarrassed to bring it back after I'd read it because it was mildly gay.

It's out of print now, but I bought it on Amazon Used a while back for nostalgia. I might have to dig it out again, I have no idea how it ends!

Well I have when I was a teenager (a very short time ago) I was more interested in getting my hands on any thing with lesbians in it period(Adult, youth, etc). Granted the majority of my young teen years were spent with Nora Roberts (a.k.a J.D. Robb) books. Hey, don’t give me that look. If you pretend the guy characters in a Nora Roberts book are actually women, you have a Radclyffe book.

I did come across a few young adult books that broke the mold.

Tamora Pierce is one of those authors that broke the mold. Alanna was the series to start everything, but I think that the books after Alanna are even better then Alanna. In all of Tamora Pierce's books there is always a line or two that says it's okay to be a homosexual. In one of her series (Circle of Magic which is continued by Circle Opens and Circle Reforms) you get not one lady who loves ladies, but three! Two who are lesbians and one bisexual.

Judy Blume wrote about issues that no one else had ever wrote about before in her novels, like masturbation.

The Young Jedi Knights series has two young ladies who refuse to go by what is expected of them. Jaina Solo doesn’t want to be like her mom as people think she should be and Tenel Ka is not going to be the simple royal princess people want her to be.

Of course it goes without saying that one should read Nancy Garden and Julie Ann Peters. There is also a book called True Dare Promise by Paula Boock.

I’m also just going to throw out some kids books that while they’re not terrible gayish, they are enjoyable:
Rowan of Rin series by Emily Rodda
Rowan Hood: Daughter of Robin Hood series by Nancy Springer (You should read her books anyway)
The Sisters Grimm series by Michael Buckley
The Secret Order of the Gumm Street Girls by Elise Primavera (I firmly believe that two of these girls are in love with each other but they just don’t know it)

That's all folks.

I loved Alanna of Trebond!! i found Tamara Pierce by accident when i was 10 or 11 and then fell in love and read nearly all of her books

She is my all time favorite author.

I found her in 3rd grade when I didn't read. After picking up Alana the First Adventure i forgot the author's name so I spent the rest of the year reading everything I could get my hands on - and eventually i found the second book. To this day, I blame her for me being obsessed with fanticy and for adoring reading in general. 

Tamora Pierce is really amazing. I fell in love with her books in jr. high, and whenever a new one comes out, I still make sure to read it. 

Her books are all about strong female characters, and her Circle of Magic series are lgbt inclusive, especially her latest book featuring those characters (The Will of the Empress), where we find out that one of the main characters is lesbian. The two women that mentor/take care of  the characters when they were younger also happened to be lesbian, which I didn't notice the first time I read the books.

I read practically every book in the kids' section of the library, but once I felt I should graduate up to YA I didn't find much of interest.  It seemed to be either mystery books or romance novels, and the latter never interested me much.  Hmm.  Wonder why?

I do remember someone telling me about "Forever" and going up to the adult section (which is where it was) and sitting there in the aisle all embarassed looking for the part where they talk about sex - which was actually pretty short.  Ha.

So, also, I have to thank you for this topic - it made me think of a book that I remembered liking as a kid and could never remember what it was or who it was by.  It was about a little girl in a wheelchair and I at one point thought it was Judy Blume but nope.  I was seriously upset when I was younger because I couldn't find this book.  All I needed was the internet!  I am pretty sure I just figured it out!  Wouldn't have thought to look except for this blog so thanks!  (it'll probably suck...but at least it's a mystery solved!)

Tamora Pierce's books- especially the ones revolving around Alanna, Daine and Kel- are still some of my favorite books, 9 years after I first discovered them. I reread them a couple times a year, just for fun.

 

 

Bitch magazine has a really great article on YA lit in the most recent issue (#40).

 

 

 

"There is no formula.  You learn to love by loving. "
Aldous Huxley

Maureen Johnson writes really great YA lit. Her book The Bermudez Triangle was banned in Barltesville library last year for having a same sex romance in it. You should read her blog entries about it. It was a saga. http://www.maureenjohnsonbooks.com/

 

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