Malinda Lo
Blog
Feb 10, 2009
2009 Rainbow List spotlights queer YA fiction
Looking for a YA book about lesbians to read? Look no further! Last week, the 2009 Rainbow List was released (via SLJ).
This list, which is compiled by the American Library Association’s Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgendered Round Table and the Social Responsibilities Round Table, highlights "well-written and/or well-illustrated titles with authentic and significant gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgendered/queer/questioning (GLBTQ) content for youth from birth through age 18." Here are some quick stats about the list:
- 34 books were selected (which implies that even more than 34 books were published last year with LGBTQ themes!)
- None of the four picture books or middle-grade books include lesbian characters
- Of the 25 young adult titles selected, 12 include lesbian characters. Not bad!
- It is not clear if any of the books focus on bisexual female characters. (If anyone knows for sure, please do tell us in the comments!) ETA: Love & Lies does include a bisexual character, although it is sort of a surprise at the end.
- At least six of the 12 lesbian YA titles include people of color as main or supporting characters. Yay!
Among the highlights of the list, Mayra Lazara Dole’s Down to the Bone was selected as one of four books especially deserving of recognition. I wrote about Down to the Bone in my most recent Notes & Queeries column, and I agree that it is one of the more unique LGBT YA books I’ve read. The fact that pretty much the entire cast of characters are Latina makes it all the more memorable.
I was also pleased to discover that two of the books are fantasy/sci-fi — Big Big Sky (dystopian science fiction) and Sword Masters (fantasy). Both books are published by smaller presses, which might make them more difficult to find in your local library, but they are both available for purchase online. Both covers are also just about the most lesbian book covers I’ve seen in awhile:
Boots. Women holding swords. Tell me: Why aren’t there more fantasy/sci-fi novels about lesbians? This seems like a vast, gaping hole to me!
Another vast, gaping hole? Bisexuals. Given that girls are often much more likely to be heteroflexible (at least in popular consciousness) than boys, I find it bizarre that there are so few YA books about bisexual girls. I think that bisexuality is often touched upon in coming-out novels as a stop on the way to gayness, but it is rarely explored as a real, viable option (notable exception being Brent Hartinger’s Geography Club books).
So, what do we need more of in the future? Science fiction and fantasy with bisexual characters. I, for one, am planning to write some.
Here are all the YA titles that include lesbian characters (summaries from Rainbow List, links to Amazon):
Bach, Tamara. Girl from Mars. Translated by Shelley Tanaka. 2008. 180p. Groundwood Books, $12.95. (978-0-88899-725-8). Gr. 7-10. At fifteen, Miriam’s life in a small German town lacks excitement and meaning until she meets Laura and begins to discover how full her life already is.
Dole, Mayra Lazara. Down to the Bone. 2008. 367p. HarperTeen. $16.99 (Trade); $17.89 (Lib. Binding). (978-0-06-084310-6; 978-0-06-084311-3). Gr. 8-12. After sixteen-year-old Laura is outed at school, kicked out of her home, and rejected by her girlfriend, she finds herself and her community in this hilarious debut novel with an all-Latino cast.
Dunnion, Kristyn. Big Big Sky. 2008. 244p. Red Deer Press, $14.95. (978-0-88995-404-5). Gr. 10-12. When a pod of five young well-trained female warrior assassins starts falling apart, each must show her strength in the outside real world to avoid being captured and unplugged.
Grant, Stephanie. Map of Ireland. 2008. 197p. Scribner, $22.00. (978-1-4165-5622-0/ 1-4165-5622-2). Gr. 10-12. Ann’s junior year is complicated by the forced busing of Black children to her formerly all-white high school, forcing Ann to deal with her racist environment while coping with being a lesbian in an inter-racial relationship.
Hegamin, Tonya Cherie. M+O 4EVR. 2008. 165p. Houghton Mifflin, $16.00. (978-0-618-49570-2). Gr. 7-10. After the death of Marianne, Opal’s best friend—and more—Opal deals with her loss through the life of Hannah, a runaway slave who died in 1842.
Levithan, David. How They Met, and Other Stories. 2008. 256p. Knopf, $16.99 (Trade); $19.99 (Lib. Binding). (978-0375848865; 9780375948862). Gr. 9-11. Find the answer to “what is love?” in this diverse collection of short stories.
Lieberman, Leanne. Gravity. 2008. 245p. Orca, $12.95. (978-1-550469-049-7). Gr. 9-11. Brought up as a strict Orthodox Jew to believe that homosexuality is an abomination, 15-year-old Ellie struggles with her sexual feelings for another girl.
McMahon, Jennifer. My Tiki Girl. 2008. 246p. Dutton, $16.99. (978-0-525-47943-7). Gr. 9-11. After once-popular Maggie, 15, is left with an injured leg after a car accident that kills her mother, she finds solace with Dahlia, the new girl at school, and her unconventional family, including a mentally-ill mother.
Penny, Patricia G. Belinda’s Obsession. [Not Just Proms & Parties series]. September 2007. 134p. Lobster Press, $7.95. (978-0-897073-62-9). Gr. 7-10. After she discovers that her mother is having an affair, Belinda’s obsession with saving her parents’ marriage damages her growing relationship with her last summer’s fling, Candace.
Rosen, Selina. Sword Masters. 2008. 313p. Dragon Moon Press, $19.95. (978-1-896944-65-4). Gr. 9-12. Determined to avenge her father’s death, Tarius pretends to be male and non-Katabull to study with the Sword Masters but finds more than she bargained for when she falls in love with the headmaster’s daughter, Jena, who thinks that Tarius is a man.
Tamaki, Mariko and Jillian Tamaki. Skim. 2008. 140p. Groundwood Books, $15.00. (0888997531/9780888997531). Gr. 9-12. Would-be Wiccan and goth Skim, aka Kimberly Keiko Cameron, is revealed in this graphic novel as a sometimes target for the popular students at her all-girls private school in Toronto, where she falls in love with her English teacher Ms. Archer.
Wittlinger, Ellen. Love & Lies: Marisol’s Story. 2008. 256p. Simon & Schuster, $16.00. (1416916237) (978-1416916239). Gr. 9-11. When Marisol takes a year off between high school and college to write a novel, she falls in love with her creative writing teacher, Olivia.
See the whole list here. What do you think of the list?
Thanks for this posting! I have to get on the titles on this list I haven’t read yet!
And thank you for pointing out just what a problem the lack of bisexuals is. Positive representations really matter.
I know I personally suffered enormously when I was coming out from something even worse–scenes of biphobia in lesbian books (and films). Stacey D’Erasmo’s otherwise excellent novel Tea has a scene where characters respond with great disdain to someone announcing that she’s bi, and there’s never any sense that they’re wrong to do so. I remember reading that on the bus; it was like I’d just been punched in the gut. I shook all the way home.
And Julie Ann Peters has an even worse scene in her book Keeping You a Secret, because the biphoia is so clearly the author’s. The main character has a moment during her coming-out drama where she wonders if she might be bi, but decides she can’t be because her feelings are “too strong.” Because of course bisexuals are only half in love with the women they fall for?!? It’s so insulting.
I read it and thought, wow. This is another one of those moments that devastated me so much when I was coming out. Here for a whole new generation.
Which is to say, I’m very much looking forward to your science fiction and fantasy with bisexual characters! (And to Ash, of course.)
Zahra, thanks for your comment and I’m so glad you’re looking forward to ASH.
I don’t agree, though, with your comment about Julie Anne Peters, because I think it’s dangerous to ever draw conclusions about an author herself from a book she has written. Authors do not equal the characters they write. I hope you’ll reconsider KYAS with that in mind.
Julie has only ever been kind and supportive to me (and just gave a wonderful blurb to ASH), and I highly doubt she meant to offend you or any readers.
I’ll happily clarify. You are of course right that authors don’t equal their characters. I was trying to contrast Tea, where the biphobia clearly belongs to a secondary character, and KYAS, where it comes directly from the narrator (who meant to be closely identified with) to the reader. It’s a book with less authorial distance. (I’ve certainly written characters who voice sentiments I don’t agree with, but there are ways to signal authorial disapproval, or even just that another POV exist, and Peters doesn’t do anything in that regard.)
So it’s probably more accurate to say that the narrative voice of KYAS is biphobic, or that the book contains a biphobic sentiment. And it had a negative effect on me as a bisexual reader, which was all the stronger because it echoed similar moments I had experienced both in reading and real life.
For what it’s worth, I highly doubt she meant to offend me either. Who does? I’m not talking about intent, but effect on the reader.
(After all, if you meant to foreshadow the idea that there’s a monster in the moat, but you forgot to put that fin-sighting in chapter 2, the reader still thinks the ending came out of nowhere.)
I don’t know about you, but I know a lot of otherwise kind and supportive and lovely people who are on occasion racist or homophobic or the like. Usually not on purpose. God knows I’ve said and done some embarrassing things in that realm myself.
I don’t personally believe that because someone does something prejudiced they are Forever and Ever a Very Bad Person, or that they can’t be an ally in other ways. Or that they can’t learn from the experience. I know I have (and also from looking at the way other people have unintentionally hurt people).
But I do believe that when someone says or does something that demeans me or someone else, I should point out the problem. That’s the only way that we improve this world.
Congratulations on the Peters blurb, btw, because it’s a coup and will probably help your sales. You and your publisher are doing a great job on the blurbs.
Thank you for this list! I haven’t read a lot of these books and will definately be checking them out soon!
I love David Levithan’s books and all of Julie Anne Peter’s novels. KYAS is my absolute favorite, but they are all so brutally honest. I hope to be able to write books like them someday.
Also, I can’t wait to read Ash!
Nobody has mentioned that Marisol’s Story is a sequel of sorts to Hard Love, where its male protagonist befriended Marisol through her zine and developed a crush while trying to understand her (gratefully unwavering) attraction to girls. He was discouraged but not angry or hateful, and it didn’t include sexual tension or homophobia. Just the usual teenage angst.