Richie's Picks: Great Books for Children and Young Adults

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There will come a time when everybody
Who is lonely will be free
To sing and dance and love
There will come a time when every evil
That we know will be an evil
That we can rise above
Who cares if hair is long or short
Or sprayed or partly grayed
We know that hair ain't where it's at
There will come a time when you won't
even be ashamed if you are fat.
--Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention, 1968

Author David Levithan acknowledges at the beginning of BOY MEETS BOY that the book "started out as a story I wrote for my friends for Valentine's Day." Through its evolution from story-for-friends to book-on-the-shelf, it has retained an utter sense and inno-cence of hope, of compassion, of silliness, and of joy:

"We hold hands as we walk through town. If anybody notices, nobody cares. I know we all like to think of the heart as the center of the body, but at this moment, every conscious part of me is in the hand that he holds. It is through that hand, that feeling, that I experience everything else. The only things I notice around me are the good things--the mesmerizing tunes spilling out from the open door of the record store; the older man and the even older woman sitting on a park bench, sharing a blintz; the seven-year-old leaping from sidewalk square to sidewalk square, teetering and shifting to avoid stepping on a crack."

My heart was touched by this book as surely as Paul's hand was touched by Noah's.

"I work hard every day of my life
I work till I ache my bones
At the end I take home my hard earned pay all on my own -
I get down on my knees
And I start to pray
Till the tears run down from my eyes
Lord - somebody - somebody
Can anybody find me - somebody to love?"
--Queen, 1976

At the core of BOY MEETS BOY are the loves and lives of three high school students who have been longtime friends: Paul (who narrates the story), Tony, and Joni. Paul, who has the supportive parents, and Tony, who has the "religious" parents, are among a number of diverse gay teen characters.

"I've always known I was gay, but it wasn't confirmed until I was in kindergarten. "It was my teacher who said so. It was right there on my kindergarten report card: PAUL IS DEFINITELY GAY AND HAS A VERY GOOD SENSE OF SELF. "I saw it on her desk one day before naptime. And I have to admit: I might not have realized I was different if Mrs. Benchly hadn't pointed it out. I mean, I was five years old. I just assumed boys were attracted to other boys. Why else would they spend all of their time together, playing on teams and making fun of the girls? I assumed it was because we all liked each other. I was still unclear how girls fit into the picture, but I thought I knew the boy thing A-OK.
"Imagine my surprise to find out that I wasn't entirely right. Imagine my surprise when I went through all the other reports and found out that not one of the other boys had been labeled DEFINITELY GAY. (In all fairness, none of the others had a VERY GOOD SENSE OF SELF, either.) Mrs. Benchly caught me at her desk and looked quite alarmed. Since I was more than a little confused, I asked her for some clarification.
" 'Am I definitely gay?' I asked.
"Mrs. Benchly looked me over and nodded.
" 'What's gay?'
" 'It's when a boy likes other boys,' she explained.
"I pointed over to the painting corner, where Greg Easton was wrestling on the ground with Ted Halpern.
" 'Is Greg gay?'
" 'No,' Mrs. Benchly answered. 'At least, not yet.'
"Interesting. I found it all very interesting.
"Mrs. Benchly explained a little more to me--the whole boys-liking-girls thing. I can't say I understood. Mrs. Benchly asked me if I'd noticed that marriages were mostly made up of men and women. I had never really thought of marriages as things that involved liking. I had just assumed this man-woman arrangement was yet another adult quirk, like flossing. Now Mrs. Benchly was telling me something much bigger. Some sort of silly global conspiracy."

"Somehow, someday,
we need just one victory and we're on our way
Prayin' for it all day and fightin' for it all night
Give us just one victory, it will be all right"
--Todd Rundgren, 1973

I spent the summer grinning, enjoying the legal victory shared by all Americans, as the Ridiculous Right spewed their conspiracy theories about the Supreme Court's historic June decision. Undoubtedly those hysterics will linger into the future in the same way that you have Trent Lott's buffoonery fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education. But, just as that landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision signaled the recognition that there were legal and moral imperatives for treating black kids the same as white kids, Lawrence v. Texas marks the recognition that someone being gay is not an acceptable reason for treating them like crap--either under the law or in everyday life. Here in California, we await the Governor's signature on Assembly Bill 205, which will help implement the Court's dictate.

I only wish the many close friends I lost a decade ago could be here to celebrate it.

BOY MEETS BOY is not a tense book about gay issues. It is an impeccably timed celebration of what will be. Throughout the story both straight and gay teen couples struggle with relationships. Both straight and gay teen characters struggle with friendships and parents and classmates. Unique touches, such as the drag queen-slash-star quarterback and the cheerleader squad on Harleys, occasionally threaten to take the story over the top, but it is solidly anchored in sensitive, honest portrayals of teens trying to find their way.

"I find myself thinking back to something I saw in the national news about a year ago. A teen football player had died in a car accident. The cameras showed all his friends after the funeral--these big hulking guys, all in tears, saying 'I loved him. We all loved him so much.' I started crying, too, and I wondered if these guys had told the football player they loved him while he was alive, or whether it was only with death that this strange word, love, could be used. I vowed then and there that I would never hesitate to speak up to the people I loved. They deserved to know they gave meaning to my life. They deserved to know I thought the world of them.
" 'You know I love you,' I say to Tony now, not for the first time.
'You are really one of the greatest people I know.'
"Tony can't take a compliment, and here I am, giving him the best one I can give. He brushes it off, sweeping his hand to the side. But I know he's heard it. I know he knows it.
" 'I'm glad we're here,' he says."

Richie Partington
http://richiespicks.com
BudNotBuddy@aol.com