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Your New School Library: Ivan Coyote, A.S. King, and Mariko Tamaki

“Your New School Library” is a column of book reviews that will highlight the expanding role of lesbian, bisexual, transgender and strong female characters in literature for children and young adults today. Once a month, we’ll tell you about books that help young girls be awesome.

The books I have for you this month, man.

When reading, I like to have a pen nearby, to underline words that ring in my head the right way, to bracket lines and paragraphs that seem particularly wonderful or satisfyingly logical. But every now and then, a book like One In Every Crowd comes along. A book where I like every single word and sentence and paragraph so much that my pen lies unmoved, dumbfounded, unable to mark up every page of such a precious thing.

This book is noted to be Ivan Coyote‘s first book specifically targeted at youth, but reading it, I don’t know if I would term it a young adult book. I don’t know if I would term it a children’s book. Like Coyote herself, the book defies boundaries; it tells stories about being a kid, it tells stories about being a grown up, it tells stories about the gender spectrum and about being gay, it tells stories that have nothing to do with either. Mainly, it tells stories about being human.

As you’ve probably caught on, this isn’t a novel but a collection of stories. These stories are labeled, according to the text on the back cover, as “fiction,” yet it’s clear that they are all based on Coyote’s life. But Coyote doesn’t really call herself a writer or a public speaker even though those are two things she does very well; what she mainly calls herself is a storyteller. And maybe this book punched me in the gut so hard because storytellers are my very favorite kind of people. Storytellers understand that there are no fictional stories, no true stories, just stories; everything is a mixture.

One In Every Crowd is broken up into different sections of themes covering a remarkable breadth of subjects, and another reason I wanted to cradle it in my arms like a child is that she hits upon all of the subjects that are closest to my heart: Family. (The family stories are so good.) Home. Art. Love. Social Justice. Education and Youth.

There’s only one story in the whole collection specifically related to her wife, “Just a Love Story,” but it is worth it. She and some other poets are on their way to a high school speaking gig on the day before Valentine’s Day, so the suggestion of reading love stories is brought up. Yet as all the other speakers are straight, and the high school is in the sticks, this holds different weight for Ivan. She explains the burden of the queer artist to her comrades:

“‘For you, a love poem is just that. A love poem. And I am glad for you, I truly am. But for me to read a love poem in a high school in the bible belt is a political statement, whether I mean it to be or not, someone will think I am recruiting, armpits will grow moist with tension, I will be pushing the homosexual agenda on unsuspecting adolescents, I will be disrespecting someone’s interpretation of the words of their God, you know, the whole tired routine.’

‘So what?’ pipes up the anarchist beat poet who had been slumped in the backseat beside the slam poet. ‘We’ve got your back, Coyote, fuck them all, rock the boat. Surrey needs it.’

‘What if I just want to tell a love story?’ I asked. Only the thump of the windshield wipers responded.”

I read a good portion of this book on airplanes, squeezed between two strangers, yet I couldn’t stop myself from crying unabashedly, tears streaming down my face, as I read stories such as “Nobody Ever,” where a young girl named Ruby seeks Coyote out after a show that she was too young to get into, asking her to sign a well-worn copy of one of her books, saying that she especially liked that tomboy in that one story, because she reminded her of herself. “And nobody ever reminds me of me.”

There are so many vital stories in here; stories about how scary high schools still are even when you’re an adult; stories about the different ways in which we find love; stories about boys who likes to wear dresses; stories about the deep conundrum of what bathroom to walk into. Every story is full of honesty, joy, warmth, pain, anger, and hope. Every story is markedly real. I felt like I knew every character in every story, or at least wanted to; I longed to jump into Coyote’s world and take trips to the Yukon and have long talks and hearty laughs over coffee or alcohol. To tell stories. Scratch that; this wasn’t something I longed for, but something that I felt would be completely natural, something that was pretty much as good as real. And any book, any story, that makes you feel that level of comfort, that is something special. Those are the books you never throw away. And I’ll never throw One In Every Crowd away – except if I find a youth who needs it. Then I’ll gladly hand it over, and buy a few additional copies for their friends.

Sometimes, in my ponderings about writing a book of my own someday or when I’m thinking about that next tattoo, I think about epigrams. They stress me out. There are so many memorable and insightful quotes out there in the world, when it comes to choosing only one (or a few) to include at the beginning of a book or to etch forever onto your skin – how does one do it? Where do you begin? Yet people are able to find those exact right words all the time. A. S. King at the beginning of Ask the Passengers, for example.

I liked these quotes when I first opened this book, but when I went back and read them again when it was all over, I liked them even more. These quotes offer separate messages yet all manage to flow into each other perfectly. And they magically sum up the journey of our protagonist, Astrid Jones.

Here are a few things to know about Astrid Jones. She moved to a small town in Pennsylvania from New York City earlier in her life and even though it’s been years now she still doesn’t fit in. Maybe no one in her family does. To cope, her dad has turned into a massive pothead, which is preferable to her mother, a cold and childish bitch who wasn’t always a cold and childish bitch, who drove me to fits of rage throughout the novel. Her sister has jumped into the mold of trying to be the perfect small town girl, a role that distances her from Astrid even more. And even Astrid’s best friend is wrapped in lies, a secret lesbian who parades as the popular girl on the homecoming court with the perfect boyfriend during the week while hitting up the local gay bar on the weekends. To combat all the falsehoods she sees in her life, Astrid’s favorite hobby is to lie on the picnic table in her backyard, staring at the planes flying above, and she sends her love to the passengers. (Sometimes, we get to see the passengers receive it.) She sends all her to love to as many people as she can, silently, without hope or need for reciprocity. As she says, “It’s a good game because I can’t lose. Because if I give it all away, then no one can control it.”

This sending-love-to-planes thing might sound hokey, but maybe if we all engaged more freely in things that sounded hokey, the world would be a better place.

A couple other things about Astrid Jones: she really likes her Humanities class, and takes to talking in her head frequently to Socrates, although his single name makes her uncomfortable so she gives him a first one: Frank. Frank Socrates helps her out. She also has more in common with her best friend than her best friend knows, because she may or may not also be in love with a girl, one named Dee, who she makes out with in the walk-in freezer during her job on the weekends. This may or may not mean she’s gay, but she refuses to decide for most of the novel. Most of the novel involves her asking Frank why she has to be in one box or another in the first place.

I’ve been part of the queer community long enough to know that “sexual fluidity” can often be seen as a dirty phrase. As an excuse, as a cop out. So here’s a warning to those of you who feel this way: this is a novel about sexual fluidity. Except it’s also not. Astrid doesn’t spend her time focusing on questions as black and white as, “Do I like boys or girls?” In fact, she never really thinks about boys, at all. Mainly she thinks about boxes, about labels, about the need to “come out” as this one definite thing. When people ask if she’s gay and she says “I don’t know,” the only person who doesn’t either get angry or think she’s lying is Frank Socrates.

This defiance of labels is often seen as fear of actually accepting one’s gayness; and maybe sometimes it is, but does it have to be? Maybe it’s just a stage to an eventual deeper level of understanding of one’s self, but does that make it bad? Does that make it a lie? Believe me, there were moments during the novel that Astrid’s constant refusal to declare herself one thing or the other frustrated me, too. Because as human beings, we want things to be one way or the other. It’s easier. As Astrid says, that’s why Socrates was eventually forced to drink hemlock. Constant questioning makes people uncomfortable. When Dee continually pressures Astrid to “come out,” Astrid replies with this paragraph, which sends a message I believe we should shout just as loudly as we shout that it’s Okay to Be Gay:

“Still, it’s none of your business until I’m ready to tell you. Calling it a lie is wrong. And kinda hurtful. I really know what you’re trying to say, but try to think about it from my side. It just sucks that you’d hold my own confusion – which tortured me for months – against me. Seriously.”

Seriously. Let’s stop doing that.

I have probably already talked about this book for too long, but if you’re not convinced about it yet, let me tell you that A.S. King is a fantastic writer. As proof of this, her quirky chapter titles in this book are enough alone to make me love it. Here’s a sample of my favorites: “Aubergines, Foyers, and the Horse Who Lives Upstairs,” “Homecoming Friday is Jiggly,” “I Think the Raccoons Now Have Dysentery,” “OhShitOhShitOhShitOhShit Part Two,” and “Friday is Just Gross.” Come on, now. How could you NOT want to read a book that includes a chapter called “I Think the Raccoons Now Have Dysentery”? I would kill to write a book like that. But I didn’t; A.S. King did, and it was just released last week, and you should all read it.

I was going to save this book for the next time I write a graphic novel edition of this column, but I liked it so much I couldn’t wait. Just look at all the people who agree with me!

When you read as much young adult as I do, you get used to, and occasionally irritated by, the angsty teen voice. Accordingly, when you meet a character who stands out as genuinely unique and real, you feel like raising the book in the air in triumph. Or perhaps that’s just me. In any case, Skim is one of those characters. It’s not that she’s not angsty – she is, and plenty. She’s a goth who wants to be Wiccan, in fact, and maybe I enjoyed her so much because who didn’t want to be goth and Wiccan when they were a teen?? Okay, again, maybe just me. But there’s something about her voice that simply rings out as particularly true, past stereotypes or expectation.

It’s particularly true when a popular boy in her high school kills himself and she’s able to see past all the surface sympathy that erupts from her peers, through the hypocrisy of counselors who seek her out as being suicidal because she’s goth when the boy who killed himself was a star athlete. She seems to particularly speak the truth about her shifting feelings about her best friend, who doesn’t always act like a best friend. And she’s as honest as she can be with her confusing emotions about the drama/English teacher, Ms. Archer, who she admits is kind of a freak. Which is, of course, why she likes her.

Ms. Archer is a tricky character, and I still don’t know how I feel about her completely, but I like Skim enough that I still love this book. It’s not really about Ms. Archer in the end. It’s about being yourself, and having to carry on even when you’re surrounded by all the crap that is being sixteen. It’s about people surprising you, in bad ways and in good; it’s about being able to surprise yourself, too.

Another refreshing thing about Skim: as a chubby Japanese Canadian, she doesn’t look exactly like any queer teen I’ve seen in a graphic novel before, and bless that. While Skim is a couple years old and I’m just catching up to the greatness of Mariko Tamaki, I’m also looking forward to reading her newest book, a non-graphic novel variety this time but still gay, (You) Set Me on Fire, released this fall.

If these three books aren’t enough to keep you busy, this month I also recommend Sassafras Lowrey’s Roving Pack, examining the life of homeless genderqueers on the streets of Portland, Oregon, and Girl From Mars by Tamara Bach, a thoroughly bittersweet but enjoyable YA story from Germany.

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