Tiger Eyes

Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume

1982

Weight: 4 oz

Method Disposal: Giving Away

It is no secret that, in general, Americans do not have a healthy connection with death and dying.  I sure do not and have been looking for tools and resources on my own in an attempt to get more comfortable with the most uncomfortable of subjects.  I always think I am preparing myself, but there is no preparation and it is jarring and disorienting in the largest, most earth shaking ways when death touched you, even on the periphery.  I am scared to face the death of my loved ones, but I am also determined to be better at being supportive of those I love who are grieving.  Unfortunately, it is not something that you can learn from reading a handbook, and it is not something you can protect yourself from.

I did not pick up this book to learn about death.  I picked up this book to revisit the work of Judy Blume as an adult, and I had also never read Tiger Eyes.  I recognized the style right away, even though I did not know the story.  Tiger Eyes is about a teenager who loses her father to violence and her struggle to overcome depression, anxiety, and grief afterwards.  She must do this within a family of other people who are also grieving.  She wants and needs her mother, but her mother is lost in despair too.  She is not always her best self and neither are her mom, her aunt, her uncle, but they are also not their worst selves.  They are just hurting people.  

I think young adult books like this, centered heavily on character development, are so helpful and important to our emotional growth.  Young adults do not always feel comfortable asking questions and, if they are like I was, they would not even always know what to ask.  You are learning so much so fast, and what you are learning is not just your school curriculum.  If a young adult will read and wants to read, they can learn without fear of judgement, without having to know what is right and wrong to ask, and you are just led through it without even realizing you are learning.  Learning by experience even if you, personally, are not the one doing the experiencing.  Do not get me wrong, you do not read Tiger Eyes and then become a person who knows what it is like to grieve, but you do develop empathy and concern.  There is a template, if you ever need to see one again or if you needed one to begin with, that shows you that there is still life after the death of a loved one.  Books like this one do not make everything better, but their value is subtle and that value collects in your brain, with all the other information you have gained from life, from other books, from other people.  Thank you, Judy Blume, for tackling the hard stuff, even though it is not easy to face the darkness.

Amazing Young Adult Fiction

Holes  Louis Sachar 2000
Maniac Magee  Jerry Spinelli 1990
Weight: 12 oz
Method of Disposal: Leaving at Joe's in EAV

Maniac Magee was one of my favorite books growing up, and I do not think it was only because it was also one of my brother's favorites at the time, though that is why I read it to begin with.  It is about a homeless teenager who becomes a legend.  He is amazing and also mysterious.  He has no home, but he has many talents and one of them is finding the good in people and making friends in spite of societal pressures.  This book deals with what family is and how it is not always just the people you are born to, race relations, and what "home" entails.  It has been a very long time since I have read this book so I cannot tell you how well done it is, but I do remember being quite moved as a child.  Maniac Magee was someone you wish you knew, someone you would like to be like, and he is an outlier.

Holes was written almost a decade later and was turned into a movie.  It is about a boy who is forced to dig holes, among other demeaning things, in an all boys detention center.  This is another book that is written about an outcast who is also a hero and someone to look up to, despite his troubled past. 

Have I mentioned that I love Young Adult fiction?  I am happy to think of these books being on summer reading lists and hopeful that they will encourage kids to enjoy reading.

Am I Blue?

2 X   Am I Blue?: Coming Out From the Silence Edited by Marion Dane Bauer

1994

Weight: 1.8 lbs

Method of Disposal: Donating the one with a cover, leaving the one without somewhere someone can find it

This is an anthology of gay/lesbian young adult fiction that I loved when I was in the right age bracket for it.  I remember reading it and trying to get my father to read it too, though he was nervous about carrying it on a plane.  He traveled a lot for work.  

The author opens the book with these words:

         Ten years ago, an anthology of short stories dealing with gay and lesbian themes

         probably would not be considered by any major young adult publisher.  It is my dream

         that ten years from now an anthology will not be needed, that gay and lesbian

         characters will be as integrated into juvenile literature as they are in life….

         one out of ten teenagers attempts suicide.  One out of three of those does so

         because of concern about being homosexual.  That means that in every

         statistical classroom across the country there is a young person in danger of dying for lack                    of information and support concerning his or her sexuality.

I probably bought this book about 4 years after it was published, and I was thankful for it.  It has now been 17 years since it was published.  I worked in the children’s/young adult department of a bookstore for years, and I remember what it felt like—long after I quit reading exclusively young adult fiction, as I was an adult—and finding all the new gay/lesbian books.  There was a handful, maybe two or three, of fiction books.  I think there were two books about being transgendered.  I was stunned.  It was not that many , but it was a huge increase.  They kept coming.  I read them all, one after the other.  I love YA fiction anyway, but this was huge to me.  It was unexpected.  As booksellers, we would have to scan the books and send the ones that weren’t selling back to the publisher.  I always made sure to keep a couple books on the shelf no matter what the scanner said.  I fought to get that section, instead of one of my coworkers.  I knew that teenagers would still read them, but might be too ashamed to bring them home to their parents or might need their parents financial support to buy them.  There are many good reasons, including a child’s safety, that they may not want their family or friends to figure out about their questions and/or sexuality.  The big chain bookstore might not have cared about that, but I did.  

So, in a way, her dream has partially come true a decade later.  There are not quite as many books as I believe there should be, but they are coming.  There are more and more every year.  Tides are changing.  She did not mention transgendered literature, and YA fiction is truly lacking in that department--hell all fiction is.  The books I do find are good, but they are very basic and do not support a real continuum of gender.  There are still a lot of traps and simplicities.  I feel the young adults and teenagers are ready for some more complicated themes.  Not only can they handle it, but they need it.

Almost two decades later, we have the “It Gets Better” Campaign.  Queer youth is still struggling and suicide is still of huge importance to the sexual minority population.  The more information we can get out there the better.  We all need safe places and access to information and support. 

 In some ways, I am sad to see that the editor’s wishes have not been completely fulfilled to their fullest extent in almost twice as long as she had hoped.  But then I think about what I expected when I was at the age when I found this book, and I am so pleasantly surprised by how far we have come.  How different life is for me now than it was then.  How different it seems to be for the younger generations I have been lucky enough to talk to and interact with.  At least, when it comes to gay and lesbian progression.   

We still need a lot more information on bisexuality and queerness.  We need more information on transgenderism.  We also need information about being intersexed and, please, rush it on to the youth.  Most adults I know have no concept of what that word even means.  And, let me clarify here, that being transgender is not a sexuality.  Being intersex is not a sexuality and it is not directly linked to being transgender.  I include these groups because we are all dealing with problems that are created and exacerbated by a gender, sex, and sexuality binary system, and we are considered a minority because of it.

Thank you, Marion Dane Bauer, for your work and let us all continue doing this work together.  I hope these books fall into hands that need them.

The Bears Famous Invasion

The Bears’ Famous Invasion of Sicily by Dino Buzzati
2005 (it was first published in Italian, but this is the English edition with the Introduction by Lemony Snicket)
Weight: 9.6 oz
Method of Disposal: Leaving somewhere, unless you want it.



Such fun! I love children’s books that treat their audience with respect and assume that they are an intelligent crowd. It is why the Lemony Snicket series is so successful, and it is why this book is great. The humor is dark and the story is often depressing, though triumphant. There is a lot of violence and betrayal. There is also heroism and friendship. I was amused to see “GRE words” dotted throughout the text. Teach em’ those fun oft-used words young! I support it. How improved my life would have been if I had known the word “nettle” when I was in grade school.

The book includes poetry, prose, b+w and colored illustrations, a character guide (that is hilarious), and a Reader’s Companion that was written by Snicket himself. You can find some valuable lessons in this last component. “The lesson of this chapter is clear: Cats—and their owners—are not to be trusted (165).” This refers to a massive, hungry cat that attacks the bears in chapter 4. It is unleashed by its wicked troll of an owner. Or, “The lesson of this chapter is clear: There are few things more painful than a bad evening at the theater (169).” This is referring to when the bears overtook the malicious Duke while he was attending a show in town.
I won’t give you any quotes from the actual text, though I will hint to you that I love the description of ghosts in the very beginning. I recommend this book. It was endearing and entertaining.

Thank you, Nancy Garden

Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden
1999 (6th printing, first printed in 1982)
Weight: 4 oz
Method of Disposal: Donate, unless you want it



I have such fond and warm feelings for Annie on My Mind. I have talked about young adult glbt fiction on here any number of times. I have whimpered and whined and given in. I often mention not being able to find age appropriate books at the time I was realizing I was queer fabulous—when I was in middle school. Annie on My Mind was the exception. It was the only YA fiction book I found before I went into college. Don’t get me wrong, I read plenty of other things. 1 Teenager in 10, 2 Teenagers in 20, The Well of Loneliness, and so on.

I loved it. It was gentle and slow. It does not include any overt, sensual sexcapades or daring protests. It is a simple, love story about two girls realizing their feelings for each other. It seems as if they will never kiss! You know they want to, but they are too scared to admit it. I remember feeling that way when I was reading the book, and I remember having similar moments in my young, inexperienced life.

I am so glad for this book and so sad to see it go. Won’t anyone I know take it? So, I know it has a good home? It is dated now, and I am not sure who would benefit from it more—teenagers or adults—at this point. BUT it is so loveable! Aren’t you, at least, intrigued?

The Geography Club

Geography Club by Brent Hartinger
2003
Weight: 6 oz.
Method of Disposal: Do want to read it? Otherwise, I am not sure.



This book was not exceptional, though it was amusing. It was one of my gay/lesbian finds I got so excited about in my Barnes and Noble employment days. I had wanted there to be more gay/lesbian young adult reading when I was the age that genre is geared towards, and I couldn’t find it. Then, as a college student, it slowly started popping up. I was excited to find Geography Club, and I took it home that night.

My then-girlfriend and I read it aloud to each other in bed. The writing wasn’t great, the character development left a lot to be desired, and stereotypes ran rampant, but we had so much fun with it. We would be laughing out loud when it got too absurd, and then we would toss it aside for the next night. I cannot tell you now that if I read it again I would feel anything. I don’t know what would happen. It is possible that all my positive feelings towards this book are actually positive feelings towards that moment in my life, in that bed, in that apartment, with that girl.