Taylor Washington

6-6-13

Orange Stream

The Full Spectrum:

A generation of writing about gay,

lesbian, bisexual, transgender,

questioning, and other identities.

The book  The Full Spectrum: ( A generation of writing about gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, questioning, and other identities) edited by David Levithan & Billy Merrell. This book has been research upon by the SLR ( School Library Research), a research journal of the american association of school librarians. They’re research shows that in every high school there should be a LBGTG  literature for teens. Also on Goodreads it has over 1,000+ awesome reviews.   

One of my favorite short stories/ journal in this book is “When you’re a gay boy in america” by Danny Zaccagnino. His section had an very engaging story about the way gay people are treated by society. When Danny was a young boy his boy scout counselor told him he was not a true scout.

Danny also shares about his tattoo on his back and what it symbols while also explaining how the same pain from the tattoo reminded him of the pain he went through for being a gay man. His tattoo is a dragon. The dragon represents a protector that will always have his back. But thats just one interesting story in the book of a teenager that went through plenty of struggle because of his sexuality.

Personal Experiences

I can somewhat relate to The Full Spectrum because a lot of these struggles I have witnessed happen to others as they were trying to come out of there shell if being “Straight” and being the sexuality of their choosing.

Opinion?

Yes I will love this book till death bring us apart, because one of the biggest strengths of this book is each journal entry they are all so unique it's almost like reading someones secret diary. If I could change any aspect of the book it would be to have sections for each theme of the book so that you kind of had a clue of what you were about to read.

Recommendations??

Yes I would definitely recommend this book  to anyone who is mature enough to be able to have a sort of understanding of the fact that the stories in this book are very extreme on the way people put there feeling out there. These teens deserve respect.