Rainbow series

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. The author’s Web site also includes many links to resources, as well as a reading guide for Rainbow Boys.

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

Getting It

Sanchez, A. (2006). Getting it. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN-10: 1-4169-0896-X

Why read this book
Find out how Carlos and his buddies figure out wassup with having sex and having relationships. Inspired by Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, Carlos complicates his situation by asking a gay guy in his school to help make him more attractive to Roxy, the girl Carlos has his eye on.

Plot summary
Fifteen-year-old Carlos is troubled because his three best buddies have all had sex and he hasn’t. He has his eye on Roxy, a cheerleader at his high school, but Carlos can’t imagine that she would even notice him in the hallway. After seeing another student, Sal, who is rumored to be gay, relaxing in the library with a bunch of girls, Carlos decides to ask Sal to give him a make-over. The plan goes well. Sal helps Carlos get on top of his game by cleaning up his bedroom, his eating habits, his wardrobe, and his hairstyle. Before long sparks are flying between Roxy and Carlos.

All Sal wants for his services is a little cash for expenses and Carlos’ help in getting a Gay Straight Alliance going at their school. It proves harder for Carlos to deliver on his half of the bargain than it was for Sal to deliver on the make-over.

Critical evaluation
Alex Sanchez is more interested in engaging young readers with social issues than writing great literature, which is fine. The story becomes more interesting once Carlos’ too-easily-accomplished make-over is finished and Carlos has a chance to explore his attraction to Roxy. Here the common confusions associated with first encounters with sex and relationships are revealed gracefully through the plotting. Carlos wants sex, but he also wants a relationship with Roxy, and he’s confused when she’s willing to get physical quickly on his secret visits to her house but won’t talk to him the next day at school. Combined with his failure to carry through on his promise to help his new friend Sal start a Gay Straight Alliance at school; his feelings of rejection from his father, who has started another family with a new baby son; and his discomfort with his mother’s relationship with a potential new step-father, Carlos’ frustrations with Roxy manifest in what his parents see as typical anti-social, irrational teen behavior. Since the reader knows what’s going on with Carlos, it’s easy to sympathize with him, but it takes Sal’s advice for Carlos to realize that he can’t expect people around him to be sympathetic until he tells them wassup.

Getting It falls within Susanne Noble’s third category of optimism in young-adult literature, the category she finds most rewarding for her students: “… the optimistic ending in which the character actually takes the step, and the reader sees the positive consequences of making this decision” (Noble, 1997, p. 3). Although Carlos doesn’t get either sex or a relationship by the end of the novel, he gets an understanding of what they are about and how they relate to each other that leaves him and the reader confident that he will succeed before too much longer.

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. He published his first young-adult novel, Rainbow Boys, in 2001. It tells the stories of three high school boys, each gay in their own ways, who find love and friendship with each other. Rainbow High (2003) and Rainbow Road (2005) continue their stories through the end of high school and the beginning of college. 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 issues

Curriculum ties
Getting It is good independent reading for teens, but it doesn’t provide a lot of opportunity for literary analysis, historical connections, or insights into contemporary social issues.

Book-talking ideas
• Wassup with sex and relationships? Are they the same thing, something connected but distinct, something completely separate? Read about what some 15-year-olds figure out about this topic.

• Do you think the TV series Queer Eye for the Straight Guy could be remade with gay high school guys helping straight teens become more attractive to girls?

• Note the Latino names of the characters, the Spanish slang, and the Latino heritage of the author. These might pique the interest of potential Latino readers, but the Latino context of the story is quite muted and does not provide particular insights to the Latino experience in the United States.

Reading level/interest age
The protagonists are 15 years old and the reading level of the novel is appropriate for that age. Older and younger readers who are dealing with the same issues of sex and relationships would probably find the novel engaging as well. I suspect Sanchez identified the protagonists as 15-year-olds because this is in the middle of the range in ages when many young people are first experimenting with sexual intimacy.

Challenge issues
Physical intimacy between 15-year-olds is likely to offend some adults. Although the sexual interactions are mild (kissing, the fondling of bare breasts, an attempt at oral sex interrupted at the last minute by a mother’s return home), they are described clearly.

The gay theme is less likely to draw challenges in this novel than in other novels with LGBTQ content because it is political rather than sexual. Gay life among teenagers is presented as a normal aspect of the teen scene, but the romantic themes play out among non-gay students.

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.”
• Note that the theme of the novel values emotional intimacy over sexual intimacy.
• Refer the challenger to favorable book reviews from respected library journals.
• Note that Getting It received an award from the Gustavus Myers Center as an outstanding book that advances human rights.

Why I chose to read this book
I am writing a study of author Alex Sanchez, so I want to read all of his young adult novels.

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

Gustavus Myers Center (2007, December 10). The 2007 Gustavus Myers Center outstanding book awards advancing human rights. Retrieved October 11, 2009 from http://www.myerscenter.org/

Noble, S. (1997). "Why don't we ever read anything happy?" YA literature and the optimistic ending. The ALAN Review 26(1), 1-7. Retrieved September 30, 2009, from http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/ALAN/fall98/nobles.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

The Outsiders

Hinton, S. E. (2006). The outsiders. New York: Penguin Group. ISBN 0-14-240733-X. Originally published in 1967.

Why read this book

Read the book that started the modern young-adult literature boom and has sold more copies than any other young-adult novel. Meet Ponyboy Curtis, the likeable 14-year-old who tells his story, and see what life looks like to a group of teenage “greasers” who are discriminated against mostly because they are poor.

Plot summary

Ponyboy, the 14-year-old narrator of The Outsiders, is a greaser, which in his small city on the southern plains means he’s poor and wears his hair longer than the rich, preppy “Socs” who have the upper hand in Ponyboy’s world. Since the death of his parents in a car wreck eight months earlier, Ponyboy lives with his 16-year-old brother Sodapop and his 20-year-old brother Darry. Their social circle is a tight group of other “greasers,” guys who aren’t afraid to shoplift and get into fights with the Socs, but who are basically decent people, especially in the ways that they take care of each other.

One Saturday night Ponytail and his friends Johnny and Two-Bit have a chance encounter with a couple of Soc girls at a drive-in that gets Ponytail thinking that maybe there’s more to some Socs than he had thought. But later that night the Soc girls’ boyfriends jump Johnny and Ponytail, and one of the Socs ends up dead. Johnny and Ponytail flee town on a freight train and hide out in an old church in the countryside. They manage to return home before too long, but before the dust settles from the Soc’s death, Ponyboy has suffered other losses and is on the brink of losing his mind. Ultimately he manages to turn the unfairness he feels as a greaser into productive resistance to the conditions of his life.

Critical evaluation

This has to be the most brilliant novel ever written by a 16-year-old. For all adult readers of young-adult literature, most of which is written by adults, questions of authenticity linger in the back of the mind. “How well did they get this? Are these voices believable? Do young people really talk like this and see the world this way?” With The Outsiders, this question is suspended and transformed. S. E. Hinton wrote the book when she was 16 years old, so it’s got to be authentic. The question becomes, how did a 16-year-old express herself so well?

Hinton’s prose is spirited and straightforward and her characters are engaging and believable. The novelty of her plotting is the only hint I saw of her youth, but it is a hint of freshness and originally rather than of naïveté. Rather than a predictable sequence of scene setting, suspense building, and climax, Hinton structures the plot around a series of events that resolve themselves prematurely. Ponyboy, Johnny and Two-Bit transgress boundaries by hanging out with Cherry and Marcia at the drive-in, but there’s no scene before they part ways. The consequence is delayed to the point that Johnny’s killing of Bob and his escape with Ponyboy become a new dramatic arc rather than a resolution of the tension at the drive-in. The fire in the church and Johnny’s and Ponyboy’s heroism resolve the threat of their being arrested for murder when the novel is only half-way finished, a distinct contrast to the on-going suspense of a novel like Richard Wright’s Native Son. Even the rumble in the park and the death of Johnny and Dally are not the true climax of the novel. The novel climaxes not with events, but with resolution of the theme of fairness. In a self-referential moment that portends post-modernism, the climax of the novel is Ponyboy’s decision to resist the unfairness he sees in life by writing the novel we are reading.

About the author

S. E. Hinton was born in 1950 and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where she has continued to live all her life. She began The Outsiders, her remarkable first novel, as a short story when she was 15 years old in response to a friend being beat up on the way home from a movie. She turned the short story into a novel when she was 16, and it was published when she was 17. From the beginning, The Outsiders was well received by both young readers and critics and it “remains the best-selling young-adult novel of all time” (Peck, 2007).

Hinton based the conflict between Socs and greasers on her own high school experiences and, like Ponyboy, she saw writing the novel as a way to address the injustices she saw (biography.jrank.org, n.d.). Hinton continued to write well-received young-adult novels, including That Was Then, This Is Now (1971), Rumble Fish (1975), Tex (1979), and Taming the Star Runner (1988). During the 1980s she collaborated in the creation of films based on several of her novels, including Francis Ford Coppola’s The Outsiders (1983) and Rumble Fish (1983) and Christopher Cain's That Was Then, This Is Now (1985). Tim Hunter directed a film based on Tex (1982).

Genre: The Outsiders a seminal work in Diana Tixier Herald’s “Life is Hard: Outsiders” category of young-adult literature, but it also fits well in her “Contemporary Life: Coming of Age” category.

Curriculum ties

Joanne S. Gillespie provides a thoughtful and thorough array of ideas for working with The Outsiders in high school English classes (Gillespie, 2006). The 2006 edition of The Outsiders includes a list of questions for discussion.

The Outsiders is a thoroughly white book with no references to race or ethnicity (and with the “gallant” Southern gentlemen from Gone with the Wind as a substantial point of reference). For classes with a diversity of students, The Outsiders might still be effective. By its exploration of social conflict from a class perspective, it may provide a neutral window into race- and ethnic-based differences.

Book-talking ideas

· Read from Ponyboy’s engaging early descriptions of his friends.

· Highlight the themes of fairness and “staying gold.”

· Show a clip from Francis Ford Coppola’s 1983 film that conveys the Soc-greaser rivalry; point out all the young actors in the film whose names might be familiar to today’s adolescents.

Reading level/interest age

Most middle school and high school libraries in the San Francisco Unified School District include multiple copies of The Outsiders. At least three middle school libraries have class sets of the novel, which probably indicates that it is read in English/language arts classes.

Challenge issues

The Outsiders includes minimal swearing and no sex, but the violence and underage cigarette smoking may be of concern to some adults.

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.”

· Point out that the violence is not gratuitous and that central characters in the novel question both the violence and the smoking.

· Inform the challenger that the book continues to be highly regarded young-adult literature, as evidenced in Dale Peck’s 2007 review in The New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/23/books/review/Peck-t.html?scp=3&sq=dale%20peck&st=cse)

· Direct the challenger to a list of awards the book has received (http://biography.jrank.org/pages/1604/Hinton-S-usan-E-loise-1950.html).

Why I chose to read this book

Although I saw the film The Outsiders many years ago, I had never read the novel. Given its seminal role in the development of young-adult literature, it was on my must-read list.

References

biography.jrank.org (n.d.). S(usan) E(loise) Hinton. Retrieved September 20, 2009, from http://biography.jrank.org/pages/1604/Hinton-S-usan-E-loise-1950.html

Gillespie, J. S. (2006, January). Getting inside S. E. Hinton’s The Outsiders. English Journal 95(3), 44-48. Retrieved September 20, 2009, from http://libaccess.sjlibrary.org/login?url=http://proquest.umi.com.libaccess.sjlibrary.org/pqdweb?did=975470931&sid=3&Fmt=4&clientId=17867&RQT=309&VName=PQD

Peck, D. (2007, September 23). The Outsiders: 40 years later. The New York Times. Retrieved September 20, 2009, from http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/23/books/review/Peck-t.html?scp=3&sq=dale%20peck&st=cse

Mexican WhiteBoy

De la Peña, M. (2008). Mexican whiteboy. New York: Delacorte Press. ISBN 978-0-385-73310-6

Why read this book
Danny Lopez has the fastest pitch in Southern California high school baseball, but he can’t control it. His life’s a little out of control, too, torn between an the mostly white preppy high school he attends in San Diego and the Mexican-American community his dad came from and where he’d rather be.

Plot summary
Danny Lopez is 16 years old, a good student, and the owner of the fastest pitch in Southern California high school baseball. But his life’s so miserable he can hardly talk. His Mexican father left a few years back and his white mother is dating a rich white guy who wants them to move in San Francisco. Danny’s about the only non-white kid in his preppy high school, and he doesn’t have any friends there. He’d love to play baseball, but his fast pitch is so wild the coach told him to forget it. So Danny decides to spend the summer with his dad’s family in National City, a mostly Mexican-American town south of San Diego.

Danny’s cousin Sofia is cool. She likes Danny even though he hardly ever has a word to say. She introduces him to all her friends in the neighborhood, including Uno, an African American guy about Danny’s age. Uno’s a pretty good baseball player, too, and when he watches Danny practice his pitching by himself on the field in the dilapidated neighborhood park, Uno can’t believe what he sees. Danny’s fast and wild, but Uno is a catcher, and he wants to get in on this scene. Gradually he gains Danny’s confidence and they spend the summer practicing, practicing, practicing. As Danny gains control of his pitching, Uno has an idea. How about if they hustle some of the hot young hitters practicing on other baseball fields around the area? “Twenty bucks says my Danny will strike you out before you can get a hit.” Uno’s scheme has the two of them hitting out all over southern California, hoping to stay out of trouble long enough to pick up some cash.

Critical evaluation
Matt de la Peña captures life in National City with sympathy and authenticity. He neither exploits nor minimizes the challenges of life for young people of color in a poor community. As the relationships develop between Danny, his extended family, and his new friends, it’s easy to see how the support Danny finds there makes it possible for him to confront the challenges in his life, which in addition to disciplining his fast ball include the grief caused his father’s disappearance and his confusion about his biracial identity. The setting of the story becomes an important, well-developed character its own right, a key factor in the protagonist’s resolution of the conflicts within himself. In National City, everyone has Danny’s back, unlike his life in his mostly white, upper-class high school. Through Danny’s story de la Peña challenges the “deficit model” that many outsiders, including teachers, see when they look at families in a Mexican neighborhood. De la Peña’s theme goes beyond that of the young individual rising to the occasion. This is a story about the role that a nurturing community plays in that triumph.

About the author
Matt de la Peña was raised in National City, California, a town between downtown San Diego and the U.S.-Mexican border. His father is Mexican American and his mother is white. He attended the University of the Pacific on a basketball scholarship and earned an MFA in creative writing from San Diego State University. His first novel, Ball Don’t Lie (2005), is about a young basketball player. It has been made into a movie that will be released in November 2009. Mexican WhiteBoy is his second novel. A third novel, We Were Here, will be published in October 2009. De la Peña currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, and teaches creative writing (Bowllan, 2009; Matt’s bio, n.d.).

On the importance of multicultural young-adult literature, de la Peña has said, “Maybe a biracial kid like me can read one of my books and feel like an insider. Or maybe a white kid can read one and learn about somebody who exists outside of his context. But they have to be there, right? Accessible. Because, man, these kids of color, their lives are beautiful, too” (Bowllan, 2009).

Genre: Latino, Sports

Curriculum ties
Ethnic Studies — The issues Mexican WhiteBoy presents about understanding biracial identity and the importance of community in sustaining and supporting young people are both important topics in Ethnic Studies courses.

Book-talking ideas
• Pick up on the biracial issues, which are especially cool now that we have a biracial president.
• Read some of the exchanges among the younger people in National City, focusing on how decent they are to each other.
• To catch the attention of the sports fans, read or describe one of the encounters between Danny and Uno and the other high school baseball players when Danny and Uno are scamming for dollars.

Reading level/interest age
Sports, identity, confusion — Danny’s issues are things that middle school students can relate to. The lack of sex and violence in the novel, the reading level, and the length also place it in within their reach, despite the fact that the School Library Journal review pegs it for Grade 9 and up (Walton-Hadlock, 2008). The novel’s authenticity is likely to make it a good read for high school juniors and seniors, who are Danny’s age, especially Latinos and mixed-race students.

Challenge issues
Mexican WhiteBoy includes romance but not sex, and it includes a few fistfights but no life-threatening or gratuitous violence. Some characters swear a little, but the most likely feature of the book to draw challenges might be the somewhat poor light cast on the white characters. They are never denigrated for their race, but they are mostly portrayed as less sympathetic to Danny than his Mexican-American and African-American friends and family. The most important white character, Danny’s mother, is off in San Francisco with a rich, white potential husband during most of the story, but in the end she realizes that her highest priority is to return to southern California so she can be there for Danny when he returns to high school in the fall.

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.”
• Direct the challenger to the list on the author’s Web site of awards and positive reviews the book has received (http://www.mattdelapena.com/MWB.html).

Why I chose to read this book
I found this book while perusing the young-adult section in a Barnes and Noble bookstore. I bought it because of my interest in multicultural literature.

References
Bowllan, A. (2009, August 31). Writers against racism: Matt de la Peña. Bowllan’s Blog. Retrieved September 13, 2009, from http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/blog/620000062/post/210048421.html

Matt’s bio. (n.d.). Retrieved September 13, 2009, from http://www.mattdelapena.com/bio.html

Mexican WhiteBoy. (n.d.). Retrieved September 14, 2009, from http://www.mattdelapena.com/MWB.html

Walton-Hadlock, M. (2008, September). De la Peña, Matt. School Library Journal (54)9, 177. Retrieved September 14, 2009, from http://web.ebscohost.com.libaccess.sjlibrary.org/ehost/detail?vid=3&hid=105&sid=9dd65b35-b00d-4bff-9d7b-a879d3be1871%40sessionmgr110&bdata=JmxvZ2lucGFnZT1Mb2dpbi5hc3Amc2l0ZT1laG9zdC1saXZl#db=lih&AN=34179113

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (the novel)

Cohn, R. and Levithan, D. (2006). Nick and Norah’s infinite playlist. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 0-375-93531-2

Why read this book

Inhabit the world of punk rockers from New Jersey on a Saturday night out on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

Plot summary

Nick is a high school senior from a working-class New Jersey family and the bass player in a mostly queer punk band. He’s broken-hearted from his recent break-up with his girlfriend Tris. Norah is also a high school senior from New Jersey. She’s the daughter of a record company executive, and she’s still confused about her recently ended long-term relationship with Tal. After playing his set at a club in lower Manhattan one Saturday night, Nick sees Tris in the crowd and impulsively turns to Norah, whom he has never met, and asks her to be his girlfriend for five minutes while he pretends to show Tris that he’s over her. Nick doesn’t realize then that Norah and Tris go way back, and Norah doesn’t realize that Nick is the guy Tris has been abusing for the last few months. They figure out these things and more in the course of the next 12 hours as they hop to another club, fondle each other wildly in a dressing room, separate, reunite, wander around Midtown till dawn, almost have sex in an ice room in the Marriott in Times Square, and eventually figure out the rest of their lives.

Critical evaluation

The narrative is lively and the introspection is intense as authors Rachel Cohn and David Levithan take turns writing chapters from Norah’s and Nick’s perspectives. The compressed time frame and the Manhattan setting echo The Catcher in the Rye, but neither of the more modern protagonists captures the angst and vulnerability of Holden Caulfield. Neither Nick nor Norah skirts the brink of sanity like Holden, and their anxiety over their sexual relationships can’t match the damage Holden suffers from his younger brother’s death.

That said, Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist skillfully reveals the psychological dynamics of two engaged, reflective teenagers as they try to figure out if they’re a match. Both exes are on the scene to keep the recent failures front and center, and Tris is allowed to evolve from villainess to a character with her own strengths and motivations. The characters’ sophisticated music sensibilities, which are not limited to the punk scene in which the story plays out, provide opportunities for connections that keep the narrative as sharp as a Saturday night out in lower Manhattan demands. The characters’ social skills and analytical capacities would be impressive even among older, more experienced people, but their idealized experience is a model that will move some young readers to imagine bigger lives for themselves than they might have seen before they read the book.

About the authors

Rachel Cohn was born in 1968, grew up in suburban Washington, D.C., and graduated from Barnard College. Among her other young-adult novels are a trilogy featuring a teen-age girl named Cyd Charisse: Gingerbread (2002), Shrimp (2005), and Cupcake (2007) (Gale, 2009, Rachel Cohn).

David Levithan was born in 1972, grew up in New Jersey, and graduated from Brown University. He frequently writes on gay topics, such as his debut young-adult novel, Boy Meets Boy (2003), which is set in a utopian future where sexual preference is not an issue. In 2006 he co-edited a collection of pieces in various formats written by forty GLBTQ youth titled The Full Spectrum: A New Generation of Writing About Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning, and Other Identities. He also works as an editor for Scholastic Books in New York.

Contemporary Authors Online quotes Levithan on the collaborative writing process of Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist: “It was Rachel’s idea to write a back-and-forth novel ... and I’m glad she had it. We started with two names and a few facts, and then wrote the novel by exchanging chapters, without talking about it along the way. We really wrote it for each other, and it’s been really amazing that other people have liked it, too. If our storytelling hadn’t clicked, the book would’ve never happened” (Gale, 2009, David Levithan).

After Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, Cohn and Levithan collaborated on a second young-adult novel, Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List (2007).

Genre: Romance

Curriculum ties

Although the novel is good entertainment, I don’t see any historical connections or literary qualities that would make it especially useful in high school classrooms.

Book-talking ideas

• How do you figure out whether someone you just met is worth getting to know better? How do you restrain yourself when trying to get to know someone better so you don’t come off as a stalker?

• Tie the book to the 2008 movie based on the book, although the movie is much less edgy, based on the trailer (Sony Pictures, n.d.).

Reading level/interest age

A review in Publisher’s Weekly suggests the book is appropriate for ages 14 and up (Nick and Norah’s infinite playlist, 2006, p. 65) but the sexual content is such that I wouldn’t promote it to readers under 16. Ten of the 18 or so San Francisco public high school libraries own this book.

Challenge issues

Although both Nick and Norah confidently reject alcohol and other drugs, the sexual descriptions in the novel are more graphic than other young-adult literature I have read.

Response

• Remind the challenger of the library 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.”

Why I chose to read this book

I told a school librarian friend that I have been assigned to the musical genre group for a project in my young adult literature class and she thought this novel might be useful.

References

Gale (2009). David Levithan. Contemporary Authors Online. Retrieved September 12, 2009, from http://galenet.galegroup.com.ezproxy.sfpl.org/servlet/BioRC

Gale (2009). Rachel Cohn. Contemporary Authors Online. Retrieved September 12, 2009, from http://galenet.galegroup.com.ezproxy.sfpl.org/servlet/BioRC

Nick and Norah’s infinite playlist (2006, May 1). Publishers’ Weekly 243(18), 65. Retrieved September 12, 2009, from http://search.ebscohost.com.libaccess.sjlibrary.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lih&AN=20674329&loginpage=Login.asp&site=ehost-live

Sony Pictures (n.d.). Nick and Norah’s infinite playlist. Retrieved September 12, 2009, from http://www.sonypictures.com/homevideo/nickandnorah/clips.htm