Sanchez, A. (2003). Rainbow boys. New York: Simon Pulse. ISBN 0-689-85770-5
Sanchez, A. (2003). Rainbow high. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-689-85477-3
Sanchez, A. (2005). Rainbow road. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN-10: 0-689-85565-1
Why read this series
Meet Nelson, Kyle, and Jason, three seniors in high school, who are each gay in their own ways. Being gay puts a special twist on the usual struggles of making the transition from high school to life beyond, but in this case the love and friendship they find with each other helps smooth the way.
Plot summary
Jason is a high school athlete with a girlfriend and a realization that the standard expectations of someone in his situation aren’t really working for him. Kyle has known he is gay for years, but he passes pretty easily without anyone asking, so he hasn’t told his parents yet. Passing never occurred to Nelson, whose mother has supported his expression of his gay identity since middle school. Kyle and Nelson are buddies, and Kyle has been lusting after Jason from afar since freshman year. So Kyle is both delighted and nervous when Jason shows up at a Saturday morning LGBTQ meeting.
Through the course of Rainbow series, each of the protagonists confronts the obstacles on his particular path to self-acceptance. Jason knows he has to tell his girlfriend what’s going on inside him, and, as if that isn’t hard enough, there’s his homophobic father, his coach, and the entire fan base of the basketball team to deal with. Kyle knows he needs to come clean with his parents, but his bigger problem is handling his feelings toward Jason. Jason wants Kyle’s friendship, but Kyle can’t imagine that being enough. Nelson has to deal with a third party coming into his long-time friendship with Kyle as well as the consequences of failing to take the proper precautions during his first sexual encounter.
Rainbow Boys tells the story of their first semester of senior year, Rainbow High continues the story through the second semester, and Rainbow Road relates their road trip from Maryland to California during the summer after their graduation. By the end of the series, all three boys have made their way from figuring out who they are to being who they are in a sometimes-hostile world and from the one-dimensional feelings of first-time crushes to the joys of intimate relationships.
Critical evaluation
The strength of Alex Sanchez’ story is his choice of three protagonists, each with a different take on being gay. Thus the readers are exposed to a wide range of issues relating to teenage male gayness, which should help undermine stereotypes about what it means to be a gay male. During the road trip the boys encounter an even wider array of sexual expression, including 50-something gay fairies at a rural retreat in Tennessee and a teenage transsexual who hitches a ride with them from southern Mississippi to New Orleans and then introduces them to her friends there. Unfortunately, the series is all about the boys. Although two of Nelson’s lesbian friends are on the scene in the first book, they disappear by the second book. Jason’s girlfriend is the only teenage female character presented in any depth, and her experience is predictably portrayed as a journey from anger to acceptance.
It’s something of a weakness of the series that there seems to be a pecking order in the sympathy the author evokes for the three boys. Although the narrative is organized by rotating the focus of the third-person narration chapter by chapter from one boy to another in a cycle that repeats throughout the series, Jason seems to be the star. As the basketball player, his dilemmas play out on a larger stage than Nelson’s quiet desperation over his potential HIV infection or Kyle’s boy-behind-the-boy role as Jason’s confidant. The road trip in the third novel is based on Jason’s celebrity status, which has produced an invitation to address students at a gay high school in Los Angeles. This plotting doesn’t necessarily dictate the reader’s emotional sympathies – gay male readers (the predominant audience for the book, I would assume) might sympathize most with the character who seems most like them, as I identified with Kyle. But it’s hard not to feel that Jason is the dramatic center of the narrative. He’s the straight-guy-gone-gay who plays prominently in the fantasies of many gay men.
About the author
Alex Sanchez was born in Mexico City in 1957 and moved with his family to the United States when he was five years old. He has said that his life as a closeted gay adolescent in the 1970s informs much of his current writing, which is aimed at providing stories that LGBTQ youth can identify with and learn from (biography.jrank.org, n.d.). After graduating from Virginia Tech in 1978, Sanchez worked in Los Angeles hoping to become a screenwriter. He later earned a master’s degree in guidance and counseling from Old Dominion University in Virginia and worked for many years as a youth and family counselor. Rainbow Boys, originally published in 2001, is Sanchez’ first young-adult novel. Sanchez’ other books include the middle school novel So Hard to Say (2006); The God Box (2009), which explores gay issues among students of faith; and Bait (2009), the story of a sexually-abused 16-year-old who is figuring out how to make his way forward in life.
Genre: Romance, LGBTQ
Curriculum ties
The Rainbow series is most valuable for gay teen boys and their allies, for whom the hearing of the story, as opposed to its literary qualities, is the key feature. Thus the series is an important addition to any high school or public library, but it’s hard to see working it into the English/language arts or history/social studies curriculum. It would be an excellent read for students in a Gay-Straight Alliance or a course that focuses on LGBTQ issues (as long as similar reading focusing on girls’ stories are also included).
All three novels in the series include a section at the end titled “for more information about …” with great resources on many aspects of teen gay life.
Book-talking ideas
Assuming that the audience is mostly not gay, and that the gay students don’t need much encouragement to read the book once they find out about it:
• What advice would you give a friend who tells you that he/she is really attracted to someone, that the person is attracted to him/her back, and that the person is HIV-positive? That’s a dilemma facing one of the characters in Rainbow Boys …
• Imagine that you arrive at school one day and find “QUEER” scratched into the paint on your locker. What are your options? What would you do?
• If it hasn’t already happened, there’s a good chance that some day in the not-too-distant future a friend or family member is going to tell you that he/she is LGBTQ. Reading the Rainbow series is a great way to prepare yourself to be supportive and understanding for that person.
Reading level/interest age
My guess is that the major audience for the series is teenage gay boys who want to read a story where they see themselves and issues that are important to them. I can imagine 8th graders loving the series for that reason, and it is written at a level that is accessible to most of them. I can imagine high school seniors finding it equally compelling, especially since the protagonists are seniors for most of the narrative.
Challenge issues
The boys get naked and have sex, but it's all presented pretty innocently. I imagine that any challenges to the series would come from those who object to gay teen life being portrayed as a natural and normal state of affairs.
Responses
• Remind the challenger of the policy (in the case of the San Francisco Public Library) to present “all points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.”
• Remind the challenger that young people, like all patrons, are entitled to read stories about their own lives; refer them to young readers’ comments on the author’s Web site to understand the importance of the book for gay teens. Note that patrons who don’t approve are not required to check out the books.
• Direct the challenger to the list on the author’s Web site of awards Rainbow Boys has received.
Why I chose to read this book
I noticed the series when I was browsing the bookshelves in the young-adult section of my local library and wanted to know more about resources available to LGBTQ youth.
References
biography.jrank.org (n.d.). Alex Sanchez biography (1957 – ) – Sidelights. Retrieved October 11, 2009, from http://biography.jrank.org/pages/615/Sanchez-Alex-1957-Sidelights.html
Sanchez, A. (n.d.). Rainbow Boys, Bait, and other novels about love and friendship –- for teens and adults. Retrieved October 11, 2009 from http://www.alexsanchez.com
No comments:
Post a Comment