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GLBT Literature "Hallmarks"
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From: Hollis Rudiger <hmrudiger>
Date: Wed, 09 Jun 2004 10:30:45 -0500
Megan, you asked about which books might be considered hallmarks in GLBT lit One book that was once totally groundbreaking for me: Weetzie Bat, by Francesca Lia Block. Everything about it was so simultaneously fantastic and real. It was so hyped and so exciting when it was published 15 years ago, but it was also honored again more recently by YALSA in 2001 as a Best of the Best Revisted book. Everything about the culture in Weetzie Bat's world seemed so unique and gay infused without being a consciously Gay Novel, as in earlier gay problem-novels. Now, of course, we have many books that use teen speak and the langugae of subcultures to define those cultures, and we have many books with quirky characters gay and straight.
I felt the same way reading Davids Levithan's Boy Meets Boy last year, only instead of being inspired by the AIDS crisis of the 80's (a definite negative) Leviathan's real-tastic book is more positively inspired by what seems to be happening everywhere at last-- Gay kids just live their lives like all kids. Of course, there is the inclusion of the character Tony, whose parents are still stuck in the clueless and anti gay mode of their community, but overall, the novel is hopeful. In 15 years, perhaps the novels of gay kids' lives will have no Tony's...
The gender issue is now brand new and being treated carefully by writers. The Flip Side, last year, was about a straight boy who liked to cross dress. It felt a little heavy handed, and far fetched, but at least it was a book that explored the range of gender play within a straight character...
Julie Anne Peters' new novel, Luna, is a much better example of how to let characters tell their own stories without forcing a unlikely seamless plot: She deftly tells the story of Liam-Luna, Regan's brother, who knows he was born a girl inside a boy's body. She uses the sibling's presepctive of the transgender teen in order to give the reader permission to wonder and deal with his/her own difficulties with the issue, and all characters, Luna, Regan, and their parents behave badly at times. Much more realistic.
Hollis Rudiger, Librarian Cooperative Children's Book Center University of Wisconsin-School of Education 4290 Helen C. White Hall 600 North Park St. Madison, WI 53706
hmrudiger at education.wisc.edu Voice: 608&3930 Fax: 608&2I33 www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/
Received on Wed 09 Jun 2004 10:30:45 AM CDT
Date: Wed, 09 Jun 2004 10:30:45 -0500
Megan, you asked about which books might be considered hallmarks in GLBT lit One book that was once totally groundbreaking for me: Weetzie Bat, by Francesca Lia Block. Everything about it was so simultaneously fantastic and real. It was so hyped and so exciting when it was published 15 years ago, but it was also honored again more recently by YALSA in 2001 as a Best of the Best Revisted book. Everything about the culture in Weetzie Bat's world seemed so unique and gay infused without being a consciously Gay Novel, as in earlier gay problem-novels. Now, of course, we have many books that use teen speak and the langugae of subcultures to define those cultures, and we have many books with quirky characters gay and straight.
I felt the same way reading Davids Levithan's Boy Meets Boy last year, only instead of being inspired by the AIDS crisis of the 80's (a definite negative) Leviathan's real-tastic book is more positively inspired by what seems to be happening everywhere at last-- Gay kids just live their lives like all kids. Of course, there is the inclusion of the character Tony, whose parents are still stuck in the clueless and anti gay mode of their community, but overall, the novel is hopeful. In 15 years, perhaps the novels of gay kids' lives will have no Tony's...
The gender issue is now brand new and being treated carefully by writers. The Flip Side, last year, was about a straight boy who liked to cross dress. It felt a little heavy handed, and far fetched, but at least it was a book that explored the range of gender play within a straight character...
Julie Anne Peters' new novel, Luna, is a much better example of how to let characters tell their own stories without forcing a unlikely seamless plot: She deftly tells the story of Liam-Luna, Regan's brother, who knows he was born a girl inside a boy's body. She uses the sibling's presepctive of the transgender teen in order to give the reader permission to wonder and deal with his/her own difficulties with the issue, and all characters, Luna, Regan, and their parents behave badly at times. Much more realistic.
Hollis Rudiger, Librarian Cooperative Children's Book Center University of Wisconsin-School of Education 4290 Helen C. White Hall 600 North Park St. Madison, WI 53706
hmrudiger at education.wisc.edu Voice: 608&3930 Fax: 608&2I33 www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/
Received on Wed 09 Jun 2004 10:30:45 AM CDT
