Picks from June 2007 (teens & young adults)
Potential by Ariel Schrag
About the author:At 27 years old, writer and cartoonist Ariel Schrag has published four comic books, penned a big-screen adaptation of one of them, been the subject of a documentary and been a staff writer on Showtime's The L Word for two seasons. And Schrag started her thriving career young — she began as a teenager growing up in Berkeley, Calif., when she scrupulously documented her life in the autobiographical comic books Awkward, Definition, Potential and Likewise.
At a time when most people are painfully self-conscious and protective, Schrag exposed herself with an honesty and sharpness that captured the attention of underground comics and eventually led to a publishing deal with Slave Labor Graphics. Schrag attended Columbia University after graduation.http://arielschrag.com
Notes on the book:
“Awkward (9th grade), Definition (10th grade) Potential (11th grade) and Likewise (12th grade) chronicle my four years at Berkeley High School. I wrote each book during the summer after the school year I was documenting. The books cover crushes, band obsessions, new friendships, drinking and smoking pot, my obsession with science, coming out as bi, coming out as gay, falling in love, losing my virginity, my parents’ divorce, and the personal and social complications of writing about my life as I live it.”
Dare, Truth or Promise by Paula Boock
About the author:Award-winning author Paula Boock lives in Dunedin, New Zealand, where she works as a writer and publisher. She has written four books for young adults, including Dare Truth or Promise, the winner of the New Zealand Children's Book of the Year Award. She has also published poetry and plays, and has written for television.
Notes on the book:
In Dare Truth or Promise two young women are caught up in sexual passion for each other. Louie is the talented daughter of wealthy and cultured parents, and Willa is a strong-minded redhead who lives over the pub. They come from different worlds, but when they meet working at Burger Giant, lightning strikes--soon they are frantically in love.
Willa has had a previous affair that was undermined by denial, but this time it feels inevitable and right, even when Louie's mother banishes Willa after discovering them in an embrace; even when Willa is threatened by hostile anonymous notes; even when they avoid each other in confusion and pain.
Thanks to the acceptance of her tough bartender mother, Willa gains the strength to wait it out, but a psychologist tells Louie that her feelings are a passing phase, a fundamentalist promises her sins will land her in hell, and her best friend is supportive but embarrassed. The healing words that finally enable Louie to believe in herself and return to the relationship come at last from a young priest: "You see, I think love comes from God. And so, to turn away from love, real love, it could be argued, is to turn away from God.”
Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden
About the author:A versatile writer, Nancy Garden has published books for middle grade readers and children as well as for teens, nonfiction as well as fiction. But her 1982 novel Annie on My Mind, the story of two high school girls who fall in love with each other, has brought her more attention than she wanted when it was burned in front of the Kansas City School Board building in 1993 and banned from school library shelves in Olathe, Kansas, as well as other school districts. A group of high school students and their parents in Olathe had to sue the school board in federal district court in order to get the book back on the library shelves.
Today the book is as controversial as ever, in spite of its being viewed by many as one of the most important books written for teens in the past forty years. In 2003 the American Library Association gave the Margaret A. Edwards Award to Nancy Garden for lifetime achievement. http://nancygarden.com
Notes on the book:
Published in 1982, Annie on My Mind remains one of the most censored and controversial teen novels, but it is, even after twenty years, remarkable for its emphasis on the healing (even redemptive) power of love.
Annie On My Mind tells the story of two young women, each with loving families but outsiders at their respective schools, who meet at a museum in New York, quickly becoming friends and, later, lovers. The book is told from the perspective of Liza, a student at a private high school governed by an authoritarian principal.
They accidentally discover that two teachers at Liza's school have been romantically partnered for decades. These two dignified, private women serve as supportive, understanding adults who reassure Liza and Annie that their love for each other is just fine.
The real point of this book is the relationship between Liza and Annie, how they dance around each other for months before the first tentative kiss, how they both fear and long for more than kissing and holding hands, how they learn to trust each other, and finally, how they learn to trust their love in the face of narrow-minded schoolmates, teachers and family.
