Denver Public Library: Teens: Find a Good Book, Book Lists

The 2010 Rainbow List: Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning Books for Teens

THE VAST FIELDS OF ORDINARY
by Nick Burd
It’s Dade’s last summer at home. He has a crappy job at Food World, a “boyfriend” who won’t publicly acknowledge his existence, and parents on the verge of a divorce. College is Dade’s shining beacon of possibility, a horizon to keep him from floating away.

Then he meets the mysterious Alex Kincaid. Falling in real love finally lets Dade come out of the closet. But just when true happiness has set in, tragedy shatters the dreamy curtain of summer, and Dade will use every ounce of strength he’s gained to break from his past and start fresh with the future. Grades 9 and up.

EVIL?
by Timothy Carter
Stuart Bradley, a gay teenager living in a conservative Christian town in Ontario, Canada, dabbles in several forbidden activities, and when word gets out, he and some other teens face grave danger from the fallen angels that are inciting hatred and extremism in the community. Grades 9 and up.

HIDDEN VOICES: THE ORPHAN MUSICIANS OF VENICE
by Pat Lowery Collins
Anetta, Rosalba and Luisa, find their lives taking unexpected paths while growing up in eighteenth century Venice at the orphanage Ospedale della Pieta, where concerts are given to support the orphanage as well as expose the girls to potential suitors. Grades 7 and up.

ANGRY MANAGEMENT: THREE NOVELLAS
by Chris Crutcher
Mr. Nak's Angry Management group is a place for misfits. A place for stories. And, man, does this crew have stories. There's Angus Bethune and Sarah Byrnes, who can hide from everyone but each other. And Montana West, who doesn't step down from a challenge. And strait-laced Matt Miller, who had never been friends with outspoken genius Marcus James until one tragic week brings them closer than Matt could have ever imagined. These three stories are about insecurity, anger and prejudice. But they are also about love, freedom and power. About surviving. And hope. Grades 7 and up.

TILLMON COUNTY FIRE
by Pamela Ehrenberg
Eight teens give their perspectives about an anti-gay hate crime that ignites fear, homophobia, grief and loss. Grades 7 and up.

SECRETS OF TRUTH & BEAUTY
by Megan Frazer
When a disastrously misinterpreted English project lands Dara in the counselor's office, she realizes she has a decision to make. She can keep following the rules and being misunderstood, or she can finally reach out to the sister she's never met. Dara chooses reaching out and what follows is a summer of revelations, friendship, romance, a local beauty pageant and choices. Grades 9 and up.

SAY THE WORD
by Jeannine Garsee
After the death of her estranged mother, who left Ohio years ago to live with her lesbian partner in New York City, seventeen-year-old Shawna Gallagher's life is transformed by revelations about her family, her best friend, and herself. Grades 9 and up.

KING OF THE SCREWUPS
by K.L. Going
Liam Geller is Mr. Popularity. Everybody loves him. He excels at sports; he knows exactly what clothes to wear; he always ends up with the most beautiful girls in school. But he's got an uncanny ability to screw up in the very ways that tick off his father the most. When Liam finally gets kicked out of the house, his father's brother takes him in. What could a teenage chick magnet possibly have in common with his gay, glam rocker, DJ uncle who lives in a trailer in upstate New York? A lot more than you'd think. And when Liam attempts to make himself over as a nerd in a desperate attempt to impress his father, it's his "aunt" Pete and the guys in his band who convince Liam there's much more to him than his father will ever see. Grades 7 and up.

TRICKS
by Ellen Hopkins
Five troubled teenagers fall into prostitution as they search for freedom, safety, community, family and love. Grades 9 and up.

HOW BEAUTIFUL THE ORDINARY: TWELVE STORIES OF IDENTITY
edited by Michael Cart
The tales in this collection present not only the variety of identities in the LGBTQ community — transgendered, lesbian, bisexual, questioning and gay — but also the variety of experiences of being human — love, regret, betrayal and discovery. Grades 9 and up.

FREAKS AND REVELATIONS
by Davida Wills Hurwin
Tells, in two voices, of events leading up to a 1980 incident in which fourteen-year-old Jason, a gay youth surviving on the streets as a prostitute, and seventeen-year-old Doug, a hate-filled punk rocker, have a fateful meeting in a Los Angeles alley. Grades 10 and up.

ALMOST PERFECT
by Brian Katcher
With his mother working long hours and in pain from a romantic break-up, eighteen-year-old Logan feels alone and unloved until a zany new student arrives at his small-town Missouri high school, keeping a big secret. Grades 9 and up.

NEWSGIRL
by Liza Ketchum
In the spring of 1851 San Francisco is booming. Twelve-year-old Amelia Forrester has just arrived with her family and they are eager to make a new life in Phoenix City. But the mostly male town is not that hospitable to females and Amelia decides she will earn more money as a boy. Cutting her hair and donning a cap, she joins a gang of newsboys, selling Eastern newspapers for a fortune. Grades 5-8.

LOVE IS THE HIGHER LAW
by David Levithan
Three New York City teens express their reactions to the bombing of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, and its impact on their lives and the world. Grades 8 and up.

ASH
by Malinda Lo
In this variation on the Cinderella story, Ash grows up believing in the fairy realm that the king and his philosophers have sought to suppress, until one day she must choose between a handsome fairy cursed to love her and the King's Huntress whom she loves. Grades 8 and up.

MAGIC AND MISERY
by Peter Marino
TJ, a sturdy teenaged girl with little self-confidence, becomes best friends with a new, gay student in her high school, and when he is bullied and she tries to convince him to tell the authorities, he refuses. Grades 8 and up.

Y SQUARE PLUS
by Judith Park
Yagate was more than happy to help his best friend Yoshitaka with his girl troubles, but now it's Yoshitaka's turn to return the favor. Yagate's ready to escape his crowd of female admirers and find the man of his dreams. He's got his heart set on Ra-Myun, a handsome college student who just came to town. Unfortunately, Chana has her eye on Ra-Myun too and is ready to put up a fight! Grades 9 and up.

SPROUT, OR MY SALAD DAYS, WHEN I WAS GREEN IN JUDGEMENT
by Dale Peck
Moving from Long Island to Kansas after his mother dies, a teenaged boy nicknamed Sprout is surprised to find new friends, a fascinating landscape, and romantic love. Grades 7-10.

RAGE: A LOVE STORY
by Julie Anne Peters
Johanna is steadfast, patient, reliable – the go-to girl, the one everyone can count on. But always being there for others can’t give Johanna everything she needs, it can’t give her Reeve Hartt. Reeve is fierce, beautiful, wounded, elusive; a flame that draws Johanna. Johanna is determined to get her, against all advice, and to help her, against all reason. But love isn’t always reasonable, right? Grades 10 and up.

PUNKZILLA
by Adam Rapp
For a runaway boy who goes by the name "Punkzilla," kicking a meth habit and a life of petty crime in Portland, Oregon, is a prelude to a mission: reconnecting with his older brother, a gay man dying of cancer in Memphis. Against a backdrop of seedy motels, dicey bus stations and hitched rides, the desperate fourteen-year-old meets a colorful, sometimes dangerous cast of characters. And in letters to his sibling, he catalogs them all. With each interstate exit Punkzilla’s journey grows more urgent: will he make it to Tennessee in time? This daring novel offers a narrative worthy of Kerouac and a keen insight into the power of chance encounters. Grades 8 and up.

FINLATER
by Shawn Stewart Ruff
A coming of age love story set in racially charged Cincinnati in the 1970s. Meet Cliffy Douglas as he develops a friendship with classmate Noah Baumgarten. One Black and one Jewish, they are drawn to each other at first because they are wearing identical striped shirts. Children of their time, segregated by neighborhood, skin color and opportunity, neither boy has ever had a friend like the other. Grades 10 and up.

IN MIKE WE TRUST
by P. E. Ryan
As fifteen-year-old Garth is wrestling with the promise he made his mother to wait a while before coming out, his somewhat secretive uncle shows up unexpectedly for an extended visit. Grades 7-10.

BAIT
by Alex Sanchez
When a guy in his class looks at him funny, Diego punches him in the face and ends up on probation. At first he wants nothing to do with his probation officer. But as Diego starts to open up, he begins to realize that Mr. Vidas is the first person in his life who ever really wanted to listen to him. With help, Diego begins to make real progress in controlling his anger. He even opens up enough to tell Vidas about the shark tooth that his stepfather gave him that he uses to cut himself. But only if Diego can find the courage to trust Vidas with the darkest secrets from his past will he be able to heal completely. Grades 7 and up.

BLUE BOY
by Rakesh Satyal
Twelve-year-old Kiran Sharma's a bit of an outcast: he likes ballet and playing with his mother's makeup. He also reveres his Indian heritage and convinces himself that the reason he's having trouble fitting in is because he's actually the 10th reincarnation of Krishnaji, the blue-skinned Hindu deity. Grades 9 and up.

INFERNO
by Robin Stevenson
Dante is disillusioned with school and wishes she was able to be open about her sexuality, but her new friends make life even more difficult. Grades 9 and up.

INTO THE BEAUTIFUL NORTH
by Luis Alberto Urrea
When all the young men and fathers leave the bucolic Sinaloa village of Tres Camarones to find jobs in the United States, three young women and their gay friend Tacho sneak across the border to recruit seven police officers and soldiers (the Magnificent Seven!) who will return home and rescue them from the drug-dealing banditos who threaten their good life. Grades 9 and up.

THE ESSENTIAL DYKES TO WATCH OUT FOR
by Alison Bechdel
With the help of her extended family Mo, a neurotic lesbian, makes her way from youth to middle age through the countercultural adventures selected from comic strips published during the past 25 years. Grades 10 and up.

CRISIS: 40 STORIES REVEALING THE PERSONAL, SOCIAL, AND RELIGIOUS PAIN AND TRAUMA OF GROWING UP GAY IN AMERICA
edited by Mitchell Gold with Mindy Drucker
Stories of coming out and finding acceptance from 40 Americans, many of them activists and politicians, show that attitude, not homosexuality, is the problem in our society. Grades 9 and up.

DEFLOWERED: MY LIFE IN PANSY DIVISION
by Jon Ginoli
As a founding member of the Pansy Divison, the first out punk band to make it on the national scene, the author describes his coming-out experience and adventures in the homophobic music industry. Grades 10 and up.

GRINGA: A CONTRADICTORY GIRLHOOD
by Melissa Hart
Hart’s memoir shares her freedom ride as a young white girl who shifts between living with an angry well-to-do father, who has custody of her, and a homosexual mother, who seeks to belong to the Latino culture in 1970s Southern California. Grades 8 and up.

MILK: A PICTORIAL HISTORY OF HARVEY MILK
introduction and interview extracts by Dustin Lance Black; foreword by Armistead Maupin
This illustrated companion book to the film Milk features archival materials about the life and murder of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay American to be voted into a major public office in the United States. Grades 8 and up.

DUMBFOUNDED: A MEMOIR
by Matt Rothschild
The only Jewish family in a luxury Fifth Avenue building of WASPs, the senior Rothschilds took over the responsibility of raising their grandson, Matt, after his mother left him for Italy and a fourth husband. Grades 9 and up.

THE MEANING OF MATTHEW: MY SON’S MURDER IN LARAMIE, AND A WORLD TRANSFORMED
by Judy Shepard with Jon Barrett
The mother of Matthew Shepard shares her story about her son's death and the choice she made to become an international gay rights activist. Grades 9 and up.