Brugman, Alyssa. Alex As Well.

Brugman, Alyssa.  Alex As Well.  Macmillan/Henry Holt 2015  214p  16.99 978-1-62779-014-7  hs  Conflict  VG-BN   

Born with body parts associated with both sexes, Alex can identify with both maleness and femaleness.  But she has recently decided that if she has to choose one sex, it will be female. Unfortunately her parents have the opposite idea, and they keep feeding her testosterone hormones, referring to her as “he” and insisting on sending her to an all-boys’ school. After a brutal bullying event, Alex takes it upon herself to switch schools, stop the hormones, and identify as a girl. She is very much alone in her quest to find her true identity and be happy in her own skin. Her own parents are self-centered and unable to understand her feelings, and many regard her as a freak and refuse to deal with her as a fellow human being. The only one who becomes an ally is the lawyer she engages to help her in her struggle, and at the same time, she finds that she is valued by the fashion industry because she has the looks and carriage of a model.

There are very few teen novels that deal with the phenomenon of the intersex child.  Partly for this reason, this is an important book. There are some expressions that are Australian instead of American, but they will be easily understood because of context. This is a book for older teens, and especially for kids who are intersex themselves.   

Summary:  This Australian import concerns an intersex teen who has been raised as a boy but feels more like a girl.  Alex finds very few people who can really empathize, including Alex’s own family, which makes navigating identity issues painfully difficult.         

Sexual identity-Fiction                                     --Carol Kennedy

Garcia, Cristina. Dreams of Significant Girls.

Garcia, Cristina.  Dreams of Significant Girls.   

Simon & Schuster/Little Brown 2011  256p  16.99 978-1-4169-79203  

college                 E-BN  

The story of three girl’s journey into womanhood. They met one summer at boarding school

where they share a room together. Their dislike for each other would make their

stay very difficult but their destinies were interlaced.    Three girls so

different from each other, met for the first time at the boarding school in

Switzerland. Each one had their own reason for being in the school. Vivien,

Shirin and Ingrid would soon discover that destiny had thrown them together to

create a bond that would help each of them survive their entry into womanhood.

 Vivian came from a Jewish father and a Cuban mother. They left Cuba looking for

a better home but life was hard for a traveling salesman. Vivian loved to cook

and had hope of becoming a Chef one day. Her mother was having a hard time with

a husband absent all the time and she needed to time to rethink her life. 

Shirin was from Tehran. A girl used to servants and riches now finds herself

having to everything but her reason for being at the school had something to do

with socialization. Shirin was very antisocial and her parents were hoping that

this time away might bring out the butterfly in her. Ingrid was probably the

strangest. A tall German girl used to doing whatever she liked. She was sent to

the boarding school probably to give her parents a rest from her antics, which

were many and sometimes they were destructive and dangerous.

 Together, these three girls must find their way into womanhood. Reluctantly at

first and later recognizing that because they are so different, they can accept

each other with all their faults. A surprising story of coming of age for girls.

 There are sexual situations and foul language. Recommended for college or

public library.         Diaz, Magna

The PEN/ O. Henry Prize Stories 2010

Furman, Laura, editor. The PEN/ O. Henry Prize Stories 2010
Anchor see Random 2010 479p 16.00
978-0-307-47236-6 hs/adult E
This collection of the best short stories from literary magazines published in the United States and Canada will be an excellent addition to high school libraries.
This is a an annual collection of the best short stories that were previously published in English language literary magazines in the United States and Canada. Among the magazines that have submitted for this prize are The New Yorker, Harvard Review, and Kenyon Review. There are twenty stories from such esteemed authors as: Annie Proulx, Chimamanda Nogozi Adichie, John Edgar Wideman, and Alice Munro. At the end of the book, each author is profiled and writes a few short paragraphs about their particular winning story. Three distinguished fiction writers, Junot Diaz, Paula Fox, and Yiyun Li, after having read the twenty selected stories, and without knowing who authored them, have written about their favorite title. I must say, that my personal favorite, The Spoiled Man, about a poor Pakistani man who lives in a traveling box and meets his unspeakable fate because an American woman attempts to help him has left a strong impact on me. All of the stories contain amazing writing, with wonderful plots and characters. The scenarios vary from the American West to a small, rural village in Pakistan. Librarians who purchase title should be sure to tell the English Department that it is available. This book is recommended for all high school libraries and should be an annual purchase to upgrade the short story collection.
This title is recommended for Tristate Books of Note 2010.
This book is recommended for all high school libraries and should be an annual purchase to upgrade short story collections. This title is recommended for Tristate Books of Note 2010. Weinraub(2), Tina

Oh, Johnny.

Lehrer, Jim Oh, Johnny.
Random House/Knopf/Anchor/Three Rivers 2009 221p 25.00 978-1-4000-6762-6 hs/adult

Johnny is a young NJ boy who enlists in the Marines and finishes in the Pacific Theater, but his one dream in life is to play baseball and to find the girl in Wichita with whom he had his first sexual experience. This picaresque novel is written in a minimalist, almost easy-reading style, but it offers much food for thought on the themes of war being hell and illusion versus reality. It is a sobering look at one young man's experiences with war and its devastating effects on his life, as well as his helpless clinging to unrealistic dreams and aspirations about his future. It would be an excellent choice for book discussions at the upper high-school level and could be paired with other war stories like A Farewell to Arms, The Red Badge of Courage and Catch 22. C.Kennedy