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steps forward
Jan. 12th, 2010 02:16 pmIn the queer-kids'-books class I'm taking this J-term, there are a lot of things we're looking at askance. How far have we come since the publication of Annie on My Mind? Heather Has Two Mommies? Are there any good picture books with queer content, really?
In all of this uncertainty and doubt, it is good to be able to point at something and say, This is awesome. This is new. Which is How Beautiful the Ordinary, a collection of YA short stories edited by Michael Cart.
The Table of Contents reads like a who's who of queer YA fiction. The variety of types of stories is awesome: epistolary, two columns of text, graphic novel format, as well as straight-up narrative--both linear and nonlinear. The variety of ways in which the queer content is included is also awesome. Some stories, yes, are about first-love or coming out, but none of them are only that. They deal frankly with sex; with being queer in society today; with having queer parents. This is a YA anthology, but several of the stories connect to or from the past, jump generational gaps...
All this, and it's even packaged inoffensively. The title doesn't shout "queer people!". Nor does the cover. (Compare: How Beautiful the Ordinary and Am I Blue?.) Yes, in an ideal world anyone could be seen reading anthologies with rainbows and pink triangles all over them; but that world's not this one, and teens, especially questioning teens, might hesitate over picking up "Am I Blue?" for that reason. I hesitated, and--well--my family's liberal, pretty much all my friends are liberal, and for a third thing I was halfway across the country from all of those people at the time, in another liberal area. I did pick it up, and it was good; but How Beautiful the Ordinary is proof that queer YA anthologies can rock even more.
In all of this uncertainty and doubt, it is good to be able to point at something and say, This is awesome. This is new. Which is How Beautiful the Ordinary, a collection of YA short stories edited by Michael Cart.
The Table of Contents reads like a who's who of queer YA fiction. The variety of types of stories is awesome: epistolary, two columns of text, graphic novel format, as well as straight-up narrative--both linear and nonlinear. The variety of ways in which the queer content is included is also awesome. Some stories, yes, are about first-love or coming out, but none of them are only that. They deal frankly with sex; with being queer in society today; with having queer parents. This is a YA anthology, but several of the stories connect to or from the past, jump generational gaps...
All this, and it's even packaged inoffensively. The title doesn't shout "queer people!". Nor does the cover. (Compare: How Beautiful the Ordinary and Am I Blue?.) Yes, in an ideal world anyone could be seen reading anthologies with rainbows and pink triangles all over them; but that world's not this one, and teens, especially questioning teens, might hesitate over picking up "Am I Blue?" for that reason. I hesitated, and--well--my family's liberal, pretty much all my friends are liberal, and for a third thing I was halfway across the country from all of those people at the time, in another liberal area. I did pick it up, and it was good; but How Beautiful the Ordinary is proof that queer YA anthologies can rock even more.
