Rainbow Boys

Rainbow Boys by Alex Sanchez is a great book to include in the classroom. It is the first book in a trilogy with the main issues being sexuality and being gay. The series follows three young boys, Nelson, Jason, and Kyle, and the number of different issues they each face in their adolescent lives. Each character represents a different kind of person and therefore demonstrates different experiences. Each chapter is a different perspective, either from Jason, Kyle or Nelson. Therefore you are hearing about the same events, and witnessing how each character handles the situation.

Jason is a popular jock and has a girlfriend but secretly thinks he might be gay. Therefore we see him struggling with his own identity and figuring out how to live his life. Nelson is a very open gay student and is often criticized for being a "fag". He deals with much harder issues including possibly becoming HIV positive. Because he is a lot more open, we are able to learn a lot more about the gay community from him. His mother is the vice president for PFLAG (Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians And Gays), and gives the readers as well as Jason and Kyle, a lot of important life lessons. And Kyle is a shy, semi-in the closet gay who throughout the novel comes out to his family and others. Although comfortable with his sexuality, he has witnessed the hardships Nelson goes through and is not sure he is ready for it. Because Kyle is at the stage between Jason's and Nelson's, his reactions to situations is very different and more conservative. Although he is okay with himself for being gay, he knows that being gay is not always associated with positive things.

I found this book to be very empowering and an important book to include in a classroom of older students. Because this book has three different perspectives, the reader is able to experience each type of individuals' feelings and reactions to issues. Also because this book is so open about subjects within the gay community, including sex and HIV, I feel it is very informative for both gay and straight readers . I also found this book to have many similarities to Boy Meets Boy by David L in the sense that we have many different characters, all going through issues of homosexuality, yet going through different experiences and dealing with them in different ways. Because of the diversity within the subject of GLBT, I believe this book is a great addition to an older classroom, perhaps a high school level class.