Introduction: Lesbian/Gay Literature for Children and Young Adults

Abstract

Introduction:Lesbian/Gay Literature for Children and Young Adults Kenneth Kidd (bio) At first glance, lesbian/gay children's literature seems largely a post-1969 phenomenon, much like modern lesbian/gay identity itself; both are shaped by the social movements of the 1960s and 1970s.1 The young adult novel, which emerged alongside and in response to those movements, offers a particularly useful index to changing attitudes toward homosexuality. As Christine Jenkins notes, John Donovan's I'll Get There. It Better Be Worth the Trip. (1969), which appeared the year of the Stonewall Riots, was the first young adult novel to address homosexuality specifically. I'll Get There was controversial because it described a kiss and implied sexual contact between two boys. Despite the controversy, or because of it, other writers followed suit, and to date close to one hundred such novels have been published in the U.S. and Great Britain alone. The young adult genre has been extraordinarily receptive to lesbian/gay themes, largely because coming out is often described in the idiom of adolescence as an intense period of sexual attraction, social rebellion, and personal growth. In fact, coming-out novels for adults typically imitate young adult novels in both structure and theme. In recent years the genre has become more sophisticated and harder to characterize. Not only has homophobia replaced homosexuality as the designated social problem addressed in such novels, but some of the more recent titles also explore sexual identity in unconventional ways. 1994 saw the publication of two American anthologies for young adults that trace the complexities of class, race, gender, and geography, as well as sexual orientation, Not the Only One, edited by Tony Grima, and Am I Blue?, edited by Marion Dane Bauer. While the genre often seems peculiarly American, perhaps with roots in evangelical conversion narrative, similar novels are appearing across the globe. Excellent work has come from Canada and New Zealand. Australian texts include Nadia Wheatley's The Blooding (1987), Morris Gleitzman's Two Weeks with the Queen (1989), and Jenny Pausacker's engaging What Are Ya (1987). Skin Deep, by the South African writer Toeckey Jones, likens homophobia to racism, situating itself in a tradition of resistance literature. Such texts affirm the possibility of love and safe haven for lesbian and gay teenagers struggling with ostracism and depression. The young adult novel on such themes is less troubling for most readers than its counterpart for younger readers, since it addresses the sexuality of adolescents rather than children; nevertheless, the presence of young adult novels on homosexuality has helped ease the introduction of lesbian and gay themes in other genres, notably picture books. In the late 1980s, the Alyson Wonderland series of the lesbian/gay publishing house Alyson Publications introduced some controversial picture books with lesbian/gay themes. Particularly infamous are Lesléa Newman's Heather Has Two Mommies (1989) and Michael Wilhoite's Daddy's Roommate (1991), political hot potatoes in the "Children of the Rainbow" curriculum debate in New York City. They are still frequently removed from school and public libraries, although other readers praise them (and later titles) for their positive images of same-sex parents and alternative families. Such picture books typically downplay even adult sexuality in favor of a normalizing rhetoric of family values, and as yet we have no picture book about a lesbian or gay child, despite the existence of such self-aware children and the example of foreign films such as Du Er Kanne Alene, Voor een Verloren Soldaat, and Ma Vie en Rose (about a transgendered boy). This lack is due both to the reticence about sexuality in general in children's books and to the lingering belief that homosexuality in particular is incompatible with, or even antithetical to, childhood and its culture. Picture books and young adult novels are our most visible forms of lesbian/gay literature for children and adolescents, and to these genres this special issue is primarily devoted. But while such explicitly themed works have appeared only in the last several decades, many classics of Anglo-American children's literature are fundamentally homosocial, or concerned with same-sex friendships and family bonds. In retrospect, some of...

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