How Beautiful the Ordinary: Twelve Stories of Identity

Overview

A girl thought to be a boy steals her sister's skirt, while a boy thought to be a girl refuses to wear a cornflower blue dress. One boy's love of a soldier leads to the death of a stranger. The present takes a bittersweet journey into the past when a man revisits the summer school where he had "an accidental romance." And a forgotten mother writes a poignant letter to the teenage daughter she hasn't seen for fourteen years.

Poised between the past and the future are the stories of now. In nontraditional narratives, short stories, and brief graphics, tales of anticipation and regret, eagerness and confusion present distinctively modern views of love, sexuality, and gender identification. Together, they reflect the vibrant possibilities available for young people learning to love others--and themselves--in today's multifaceted and quickly changing world.

Editorial Reviews

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Author Information

Bio of Michael Cart

No bio available for Michael Cart.

Bio of Francesca Lia Block

Francesca Lia Block is the award-winning, bestselling author of numerous books. Her work has been translated into many languages. She is the recipient of the Margaret A. Edwards Lifetime Achievement Award. Ms. Block lives with her children in Los Angeles.

Bio of Jennifer Finney Boylan

JENNIFER FINNEY BOYLAN is Professor of English at Colby College and the author of the bestseller She's Not There, as well as the acclaimed novels The Planets and Getting In. A three-time guest of The Oprah Winfrey Show, she has also appeared on Larry King Live, Today, and 48 Hours, and has played herself on ABC's All My Children. She lives in Belgrade Lakes, Maine.

Bio of Ron Koertge

No bio available for Ron Koertge.

Bio of David Levithan

David Levithan finds it downright baffling to write about himself, which is why he's considering it somewhat cruel and usual to have to write this brief bio. The factual approach (born '72, Brown '94, book '03) seems a bit dry, while the emotional landscape (happy childhood, happy adolescence - give or take a few poems - and happy adulthood so far) sounds horribly well-adjusted. The only addiction he's ever had was a brief spiral into the arms of diet Dr Pepper, unless you count My So-Called Life episodes as a drug. He is evangelical in his musical beliefs and deathly afraid that his bio will end up sounding like the final paragraph in an on-line dating ad. Luckily, David is much happier talking about his book than he is talking about himself. Boy Meets Boy and The Realm of Possibility started as stories he wrote for his friends for Valentine's Day (something he's done for the past sixteen years) and turned themselves into teen novels. When not writing during spare hours on weekends, David is a senior editor at Scholastic, and the founding editor of the PUSH imprint, which is devoted to finding new voices and new authors in teen literature. With Boy Meets Boy, he basically set out to write the book that he dreamed of getting as an editor - a book about gay teens that doesn't conform to the old norms about gay teens in literature (i.e. it has to be about a gay uncle, or a teen who gets beaten up for being gay, or about outcasts who come out and find they're still outcasts, albeit outcasts with their outcastedness in common.) He's often asked if the book is a work of fantasy or a work of reality, and the answer is right down the middle - it's about where we're going, and where we should be. Of Boy Meets Boy, the reviewer at Booklist wrote: "In its blithe acceptance and celebration of human differences, this is arguably the most important gay novel since Annie on My Mind and seems to represent a near revolution in the publishing of gay-themed books for adolescents" - which pretty much blew David away when he read it. Viva la near revolution!

Bio of Julie A. Peters

No bio available for Julie A. Peters.

Bio of William Sleater

No bio available for William Sleater.

Bio of Eric Shanower

No bio available for Eric Shanower.

Bio of Emma Donoghue

No bio available for Emma Donoghue.

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Additional Info

Imprint

HarperTeen

Filesize

2.39 MB

Number of Pages

368

eBook ISBN

9780061949708