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

Problems?
Ideas?
Suggestions?
Please email BudNotBuddy@aol.com

Thank You!

"Sometimes we live no particular way but our own."
--Robert Hunter/Jerry Garcia, "Eyes of the World"

Joe Bunch, The Early Years:

"My mom says that I played wedding for about a year and that I kept asking everybody if they would marry me. Even Jeff. (That was the only time anyone can remember Jeff threatening to clobber me on a regular basis.) I had my Lainy doll marry my Ken doll. I also had her marry some of my Barbies. And G.I. Joe. (I hated that the soldier doll had my name. I mean, please. I didn't play with him much. He was another Christmas present from my clueless grandparents. One time when they were visiting, my grandpa asked me if G.I. Joe had been in any wars lately. I said, 'No, but he and Ken got married last week.' Every Christmas since then, my grandparents have sent me a check.)"

"A dangerous book!" (I can just hear it being thundered from certain pulpits and radio talk shows.) "Boy dolls marrying boy dolls! Obscene! Pornographic!"

As some of you already know, Alabama state representative Gerald Allen, who is reported to have had at least five meetings with President Bush, introduced state legislation earlier this year that would ban public funding for any books with gay characters or content to protect children from "the homosexual agenda."

(No child left behind unless they're gay, right?)

For those books already in the state's public and university libraries, Allen suggests that people "dig a big hole and dump them in and bury them."

"But ain't that America, for you and me."
--John Mellencamp, "Pink Houses"

You may also have a tough time locating a copy of TOTALLY JOE in Oklahoma. According to an American Library Association press release issued earlier today:

"The Oklahoma House passed 81-3 a nonbinding resolution May 9 asking public libraries 'to confine homosexually themed books and other age-inappropriate material to areas exclusively for adult access and distribution.' The resolution explains that because 'children need guidance and protection by adults to ensure their maturation is timely' parents should be 'free from interference from the distribution of inappropriate publicly cataloged materials.'

"HR 1039 was introduced by Rep. Sally Kern (R-Oklahoma City), who released a statement after the resolution’s passage that affirmed lawmakers are 'not looking to ban any books' but merely acknowledging that 'there are some issues little children aren't emotionally equipped to tackle, and many parents believe the issue of sexual preference is one of them.' "

(Certain unenlightened library systems in Oklahoma are already scurrying to get these books back in the closet where they belong.)

"E.T. does not have a fabulous name and is majorly ugly, but ever since the first time I saw him (I was six), I couldn't get him out of my mind. I began thinking I was from some other planet and wishing I could go home, just like E.T. I would even look up at the sky at night and try to pick out which planet was mine. I had a name for it--Wisteria.
"I think that's really the name of a flower or a perfume or something, but I liked the sound of it. I never told anybody, not Bobby or my aunt Pam or anybody. Wisteria was just for me.
"I never pictured Wisteria very clearly in my mind. I didn't know what the houses looked like or the trees or people or anything. When I imagined myself living there, it wasn't what I saw that mattered. It was what I felt. I felt at home."

"Their eyes are all asking
Are you in, or are you out,
And I think, oh man,
What is this about"
--Ani DiFranco, "In or Out"

If TOTALLY JOE was a story about Joe and Colleen instead of Joe and Colin, then it would be automatically added to school library collections serving fifth, sixth, and maybe seventh graders. The language, tone, and plot are that innocent. But because this is the story of Joe coming out and trying to navigate shark-infested hallways and school boards while being who he is, you can count on the book immediately making various hit lists referenced by "concerned" parents, preachers, and politicians.

"But that's no fair because then all the kids who don't know who they are can't read those books and find out who they are."
--Response of an eighth-grade student to her teacher (Shari, my wife) reading an article aloud today about the aforementioned "situation" in Oklahoma.

TOTALLY JOE is a very sweet, very funny, very enlightening companion book to James Howe's THE MISFITS. Having now been part of Shari's teaching THE MISFITS for four years, instigating a No-Name Calling Week based on that book, and having written and produced a school play also based on THE MISFITS, these characters have thoroughly become part of me.

I didn't discover Cynthia Voigt's seven-book Tillerman cycle until after she'd already written the entire set, but I can imagine the long-awaited excitement of rejoining the characters in a new book in that series after coming to love Dicey, her family, and her friends. That's what TOTALLY JOE did for me. And, as Voigt did with many of the Tillerman books, TOTALLY JOE partially overlaps the events that we viewed from Bobby's perspective in THE MISFITS, and then moves the story forward beyond those events.

"There is a road, no simple highway
Between the dawn and the dark of night
And if you go no one may follow
That path is for your steps alone."
--Robert Hunter/Jerry Garcia, "Ripple"

Following Joe Bunch's path through seventh grade is sheer joy. TOTALLY JOE is a totally ground-breaking book about the life and times of a funny, introspective, and gay middle school student.

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