“Your New School Library“ is a new 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.
January is an exciting (read: excitingly nerdy) month for youth literature, when the American Library Association’s Youth Media Awards are announced along with a spew of other “Best Of” lists which highlight quality literature from the previous year.
Before I get to my book reviews for the month, allow me a minute to gush about these. Because even while these lists and awards can’t cover every important book published each year, they are important. The recognition of these books helps youth figure out what to read, tells librarians what they should have on their shelves, and gives a head-up to publishers about what they should keep in print. They’re also a well-deserved, “Hey, you’re awesome” for authors who are awesome and are not told they’re awesome enough.
More simply, awards are fun and talking about them is fun so let’s get to it.
The Stonewall Award for excellence in queer literature has included a Children’s & Young Adult division since 2010. This year there were four honor books in addition to the winner, Bil Wright‘s Putting Makeup on the Fat Boy. Out of those five books, only one, Lili Wilkinson‘s Pink, involved a female-centered tale, but it was still good to see it there.
The 2012 Rainbow List includes a wider range of good queer reads from 2011 aimed at youth. This list included more Sapphic goodies like Malinda Lo‘s Huntress, Laura Goode‘s Sister Mischief, and other titles I hope to review in this column soon.
And speaking of Malinda Lo, if you’ve already read Ash and Huntress and are lying in wait for her science fiction series to start this fall, you can bide your time reading her short story “The Fox” that was published online in Subterranean Press in the summer of 2011.
The last list of note that I’ll mention (I swear, even though there are more! January is exciting, guys!) for the young ladies (and everyone) is the 2012 recommended reading list from the Amelia Bloomer Project which highlights strong feminist reads for girls published in 2011. This list is one of the most thorough, including fiction and non-fiction at three different reading levels. Hurrah for young feminists and the books that encourage them.
OK, OK, onto the reviews!
Pink, Lili Wilkinson, HarperTeen (2011, 1st US edition)
Ava has pretty much everything a young lesbian could want, including progressive, accepting parents who love her hot, intellectual girlfriend, Chloe. Chloe is the ultra-angsty-teen lesbian who reads “battered Penguin classics she found in thrift shops and at garage sales,” endlessly smokes cigarettes and questions authority while quoting Simone de Beauvoir. As Ava describes her in the first chapter, instead of doing well in school, Chloe would “rather sit on the low stone wall just outside our school and smoke cigarettes and talk about Existentialism and Life and make out with me.” (Uh, sounds good to me.)
Ava, however, has a secret, an anti-rebel rebellious wish: she wants a break from Chloe’s casual condescension, from discussing patriarchal constructs with her radical parents. Ava wants a fresh start, and she wants it at Billy Hughes, a rigorous private school where no one knows her. At Billy Hughes, she can dress like she secretly wants to – in soft, girly sweaters and feminine makeup. She can talk about boys with other girly girls. She can be pink.
Unsurprisingly, finding a new identity and a place to fit in at Billy Hughes proves harder than she thought. After failing to get a part in the school play, which would secure her spot with the Pastels, the popular, perfect, pink crowd who clinch all the lead roles, she clings to their scene by joining stage crew. Stage crew, however, is decidedly anti-Pastel – they are the Screws, the freaks. They are also ten (a million?) times more interesting.
The rest of the novel follows Ava’s attempts to hang on to the Pastels while unwillingly growing closer to the Screws – in particular, Sam (male). Sam who seems to be the only one who sees her clearly and honestly. Oh, and there’s that little ol’ problem of how she still feels, or doesn’t feel, about Chloe.
While I was frustrated with Ava’s persistent inability to see the utter, clear superiority of the Screws to the Pastels, and sad that she kept dragging Chloe along – even if Chloe was a bitch for a lot of the novel, part of you still felt for the girl – I found the complexity of Ava’s plight refreshing.
Pink, in a way, is the antithesis of the queer youth novel. Most novels begin with a character’s confusion about their identity, leading to their eventual self-discovery and final self-acceptance. But Ava’s story starts with her identity as a lesbian already established, then dissolves that identity into ambiguity. While she clears up some of that uncertainty by the end, she doesn’t come close to resolving all of it.
For instance, after her mother implores her to resist conforming to stereotypes, Ava wants to explain: “Didn’t she understand? I wanted to fit into a box. I just didn’t know which box was mine. Being boxless was confusing and lonely.”
Indeed. Thank goodness there are Lili Wilkinsons in the world to help the boxless know they’re not alone.
Don’t worry, this isn’t necessarily a gay-girl-goes-straight story. Wilkinson just shouts out to those of us out there who still don’t know exactly what we are – but we swear, we’re working on it.
365 Days, KE Payne, Bold Strokes Books (2011)
OK, confession time: I almost permanently put this one down after a few pages. But I am so glad I didn’t.
Presented in a diary format from the mind of Clemmie, a young British emerging-lesbo, this book is written as an enthusiastic teen girl would probably authentically write. In other words, there are a lot of exclamation points, a decent amount of caps, a a healthy dosage of OMGs and FFSs. (I had to ask my girlfriend what FFS meant. [/old] There is also a lot of that. [/seriously].) Imagine reading the Twitter feed or the LiveJournal entries of a relatively well-spoken – but still – 16-year-old girl.
At first, my mind said “Oh man, I don’t know if I can do this.” I showed it to my girlfriend, and she shrugged and said, “I don’t know, it seems kind of fun.” So, I kept reading. Alas, dear AfterEllen.com readers: my girlfriend was right.
While the plot of 365 Days isn’t necessarily complex – it’s a year of a young lady falling in love with ladies – I actually think it’s one of the most real books I’ve ever read. Its descriptions of teen life and emotions are relatable and honest to an almost embarrassing degree. And by embarrassing, I mean it frequently made me giggle out loud to myself while muttering, “OMG, RIGHT?”
I found myself getting a little bored as Clemmie’s year progressed and she had secured a wonderful girlfriend, but the lead-up to the girlfriend, the dealing with crushes and funny emotions that come with them, was pure gold. The most common note I scribbled in the margins was “LOLZ.”
A few examples of these LOLZ/OMG-CLEMMIE-RIGHT? moments: her first crush is a girl she never speaks to but spends almost all of her time thinking about. (Who hasn’t been there?) She says “I miss her, even though I don’t even speak to her.” (Yep.) She discusses “feeling ever such a little bit cheated if I didn’t see her on any particular day.” (Yep, yep, yep.) When she starts to develop a closer relationship with her eventual-girlfriend, she looks forward to talking to her on MSN chat each night and feels disappointed if she doesn’t come online. (Yep.) And then there was this ultimate-truth-statement: “Why hasn’t Hannah texted me? Is there anything in this world more infuriating than a textless phone??!!”
Halfway into the book, I pretty much wanted Clemmie to be my best friend so we could have sleepovers and chat about all the girls we thought were fit. (Small shout-out to Skins fans: they frequently mention “going to ours.” Just sayin’.)
I also wanted to blow up this small section, where Clemmie is trying to look up definitions for “lesbian” and “gay” online to try to find some useful information, and post it on every elementary and middle and high school wall I can find:
Gay (n): homosexual.
Gay (n): happy.
I thought that was dead deep and would be a good pick-me-up for whenever I’m getting stressed about it all, so I’ve written the two words down in the back of you, dear diary, and I’ll sneak a peek at them and think about stuff whenever I’m ever feeling down.
Let’s be honest, YA literature is often a dark and dreary place. It’s nice to have an upbeat, exclamation-point-wielding narrator every now and then – especially when that narrator is slinging amazing British-teen-speak sodding everywhere.
Note, for this and all other books I may review which are published by small and/or indie publishers: They may be harder to find. I didn’t have trouble finding 365 Days, but I have it easy because I live by the glory that is Powell’s. Here’s my advice: if it’s not in your library, or your local bookstore, ask. Asking never hurts. And if you’re lucky enough to have good librarians and good booksellers, they will be more than glad to do what they can to make you a continued, satisfied customer.
Sister Mischief, Laura Goode, Candlewick (2011)
I’m Esme Rockett, foul-mouthed, prickly syntaxed, oddly dressed, and gay.
So listen, if you’re not already hooked by an author who uses phrases like “prickly syntaxed” and creates a protagonist by the name of Esme Rockett, well, you should be.
Esme Rockett is a half-Jew who lives outside Minneapolis. She’s abandoned by her mother and falling in love with one of her best friends. She’s also an MC in the best almost-all-white hip-hop girl group this side of the Twin Cities, Sister Mischief. Esme Rockett is a badass.
Our story begins with Esme and her three besties, who make up the rest of Sister Mischief, rankled by a new school code of conduct all students at their top-tier high school are supposed to sign. The new rule? Rap is outlawed, along with any other behavior or material associated with this “violence-inducing culture.” Pissed off and full of creative energy, Sister Mischief refuse to sign and create their own new club in retaliation.
Combining their anger over this new attack on expression with their dismay over the lack of a gay-straight alliance at their school, their club is called Hip-Hop for Heteros and Homos. Or – for a little extra tongue-in-cheek suburbia smugness – 4H for short.
This swirling of hip-hop justice with queer justice seems a bit of a stretch at first, but I believe it does work, especially as the novel moves forward and the ladies of Sister Mischief grow increasingly passionate about their mission. 4H works as a combatant against all that is taboo in their white, Protestant community, the things that scare their racist and homophobic elders the most. As they eventually articulate in their mission statement, “Hip-Hop for Heteros and Homos celebrates sameness in collective otherness.”
While the 4H storyline is fascinating and full of endless interesting discussions about hip-hop and culture – who owns it, what it means, how it relates to their world – that only veers towards didactic occasionally, it’s Esme’s personal growth that pulls you in the most.
I knew I would like this novel in the first chapter, when the trying-to-be-with-a-dude-just-to-make-sure storyline happens, a storyline which I’m starting to feel slightly tired of in these novels. But at least it’s over quickly in this one. And in the middle of it, this was the line that hooked me: “Charlie Knutsen is meat and I want fruit. I’d known it all along.”
The relationship she develops with her fellow MC, Rowie, is lovely and fierce, all-consuming, and secret. Secrets, alas, rarely turn out well. The heartache that eventually spills all through Esme’s life is complex and real and I felt it so hard. Perhaps because, along with the rest of the novel, it was so well-written.
I also have to mention the diversity, because it’s something that’s so often lacking in this genre. Rowie (actually Rohini) is Indian-American, a culture I’d actually never seen mentioned in queer YA lit before. Two of Esme’s friends at school are Somalian refugees. Then there is Esme’s own Jewish blood. Although since she inherited it from her estranged mother, coming to terms with a heritage and faith she feels she doesn’t actually own is yet another struggle. Faith, in general, is another issue that’s threaded throughout.
There are a lot of “issues” in this book: sexual identity, faith, hip-hop, feminism, racism, hate crimes, protesting, but it’s done well. And when it’s done well, it doesn’t have to be an “issue” book. It can just be a good book.
Another thing in here that’s not seen too often in queer YA lit: a really, really good dad. He and Esme’s constant refrain to each other is, “I love you no shit.” I loved this book no shit. You should read it.
