Will Grayson ,Will Grayson

Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan
304 pages
Publisher:  Dutton Juvenile (2010)
ISBN: 0525421580

Reading Level/Lexile: 9th-12th grade/930L
Genre:  LGBTQ 

Annotation/Teaser:  This is the story of two teenage boys, both named Will Grayson and their accidental meeting.  What happens next is life changing.

Plot Summary:  Two teenage boys with the same name, leading totally separate lives.  The first, Will Grayson has two rules for life.  1. Don't care too much 2. Shut Up  His best friend, Tiny, is biggest kid at school,  always in love with someone new, and gay.  The other boy, Will Grayson, is a lonely and depressed and has a internet love affair with a boy named Isaac that is a secret.  He finally decides he is ready to meet Isaac and sets up a time to meet in downtown Chicago.  But when he gets there he meets Will Grayson instead.  Their lives begin to overlap as both Will Graysons find their lives changing. 
About The Author:  John Green  
John Green is the New York Times bestselling author of Looking for Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines, Paper Towns, and The Fault in Our Stars. He is also the coauthor, with David Levithan, of Will Grayson, Will Grayson. He was 2006 recipient of the Michael L. Printz Award, a 2009 Edgar Award winner, and has twice been a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Green’s books have been published in more than a dozen languages.
In 2007, Green and his brother Hank ceased textual communication and began to talk primarily through videoblogs posted to YouTube. The videos spawned a community of people called nerdfighters who fight for intellectualism and to decrease the overall worldwide level of suck. (Decreasing suck takes many forms: Nerdfighters have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to fight poverty in the developing world; they also planted thousands of trees around the world in May of 2010 to celebrate Hank’s 30th birthday.) Although they have long since resumed textual communication, John and Hank continue to upload two videos a week to their YouTube channel, vlogbrothers. Their videos have been viewed more than 200 million times, and their channel is one of the most popular in the history of online video. He is also an active Twitter user with more than 1.2 million followers.
Green’s book reviews have appeared in The New York Times Book Review and Booklist, a wonderful book review journal where he worked as a publishing assistant and production editor while writing Looking for Alaska. Green grew up in Orlando, Florida before attending Indian Springs School and then Kenyon College.

John Green Bio (n.d.) Retrieved from www.johngreenbooks.com

David Levithan  David Levithan was born September 7, 1972 in Short Hills, New Jersey.  He graduated from Brown University in 1994 where he double majored in English and political science.
Since he published his first book, Boy Meets Boy, in 2003, David Levithan has been making a positive contribution to the genre of LBGTQ YA novels. Boy Meets Boy, a “dippy happy gay teen book” as Levithan likes to describe it, features an openly gay main character named Paul who faces his sophomore year of high school and all of the drama that goes with it (davidlevithan.com). Levithan wrote this book with the purpose of creating gay characters who break the stereotypes of past literature; he does this by featuring gay teenagers living normal, satisfying lives without dwelling upon their social abuse. Often in LBGTQ literature, gay characters are defined by the way their social abuse affects them, but Levithan aims to define his characters based on who they are without conflict. Levithan says that Boy Meets Boy is neither fantasy nor reality, but is instead a novel about “where we are going, and where we should be,” as a society (davidlevithan.com). Other books that Levithan has contributed to the LBGTQ genre of young adult literature include The Full Spectrum, Wide Awake, Naomi and Ely’s No Kiss List and Will Grayson, Will Grayson. (2011)
Levithan’s strong background in writing about LBGTQ teens has surely influenced his writing of “A Word from the Nearly Distant Past,” Levithan’s contribution to How Beautiful the Ordinary. Despite many readers’ understandable assumption that Levithan himself has a homosexual orientation, he is very ambiguous about his sexuality and will not admit to being either gay or straight. Levithan’s sexuality may remain a mystery, but his understanding of the LBGTQ community is clearly shown through his literature. In his latest book in the LBGTQ genre, Will Grayson, Will Grayson (2011), Levithan creates a gay character who is by no means perfect.  Levithan explains he did this because a perfect character would simply be boring to read about. By creating an imperfect character, Levithan faces the “danger” of representing the LBGTQ community negatively.  Levithan was asked how he, as an author, deals with the criticism that he may be feeding into a stereotype of gay men. He responds by saying, “I can honestly say I’ve never thought for a second about whether a character reflects poorly on any group. All that matters to me is that the character is true to my belief in who he or she is” (Advocate contributors 2011). The fact that Levithan strives to represent the LBGTQ community in such a genuine manner makes his works highly eligible for use in the classroom.

David Levithan Bio (n.d.)  Retrieved from www.beyondthepalebooks.net

Critical Evaluation:  John Green and David Levithan co-wrote this book.  Green wrote the odd numbered chapters and Levithan wrote the even numbered chapters.  One thing that worked well is that Levithan wrote will grayson's character in lower case letters.  This is a metaphor for how he sees himself.  Green's Will Grayson see himself in orbit around Tiny Cooper, his best friend, a boy with a larger than life personality and physique.  I thought both authors did a great job with both characters My favorite character is Tiny Cooper and his relationship with Will.  Tiny is described as " the world's largest person who is really, really gay" and "the world's gayest person who is really, really large."  Tiny is also in the process of writing and producing an autobiographical high school musical.  Tiny makes me laugh out loud.  He is a drama queen and never ceases to spit out really gay lines throughout the book.  I can tell you the moment I fell in love with Tiny and Will's relationship.  It was in the very first chapter of the book.  Tiny is drunk and he has been snotting and crying because of his most recent breakup.  Will says," Tiny, you gotta get the snot outta your nose, man."  And then Will realizes that Tiny can't so he picks his nose for him.  One of my favorite lines from the book is "In short:  I cannot pick my friend: he cannot p
ick his nose, and I can-nay, I must- pick it for him."  Even though the writers of this book have very different styles of writing, it works well together.  This is a ridiculous story but its honest and true-to-life characters make it wonderful and enjoyable for all ages but especially young adults.

Curriculum Ties:  English

Book Talk Ideas:  What if you were to randomly meet someone who shared your name?

Controversial Issues:  Homosexuality

Defense:

*I will keep the library's selection policy on hand and memorized with a good understanding  of the standards and policies to show that the selection meets the standards. 

*I will keep good and bad reviews (both electronic and print) and make sure they are from reliable and respected sources such as School of Library Journal, Booklist, and YALSA. I will have copies of these reviews to give away. 

*I will confirm the library's position to provide intellectual freedom as stated in the Library Bill of Rights and keep a copy of this.

*I will keep a written rationale to justify the reasons this material is included in the collection, such as educational significance and curriculum ties.

*I will be respectful and calm and practice "active listening".

*I will make sure I read the material and are very familiar with it.

* I will keep a reconsideration form on file in the event that my other strategies don't work. 

Why I Chose This Book?  I chose this book because of its fabulous authors, John Green and David Levithan.  But also because there is such a limited amount of LGBTQ literature around for teens to read.