Garden, N. (1982). Annie on my mind, NY: FSG.
Summary
When a museum trip turns into something more, Liz and Annie find their happy friendship blossoming into a budding crush, and even love. Not truly understanding how something they are taught is so wrong could feel so right, Liz and Annie explore their feelings and emotions, trying hard to stay true to themselves. When they're caught in an indisposed position, their secret little world begins to unravel, and the reactions to their love are less than ideal. In this wonderful novel, author Nancy Garden explores what it means to be an adolescent lesbian in an unforgiving world.
A Teacher's Perspective
This book came out almost 40 years ago. That's 15 years before Ellen came out and was praised for being one of the first lesbians to make changes in the world. That's 33 years before gay marriage was legalized in the US. The fact that Garden was so unafraid to let this truth speak is so amazing, that this book should win all the awards for being a groundbreaker. Yet a little research shows that this book has been openly burned on school steps in Kansas in 1994, despite students writing open letters to allow them to read it. The uproar over a novel about young love, which shouldn't need a sexuality label, is so outrageous in the day and age we live in today. Sadly, these anti-homosexual ideals can still peek their heads out-which makes this book completely relevant. Students want to know they're not weird. Students need to know there are other people like them. Students need books like this.
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