Hey all:

I was contacted by someone with the following info and request:

       I'm a high school English teacher, and I teach a number of students who are happily and openly GLB.    Unfortunately, I also teach a number of students who are clearly struggling with sexual identity. I would love to have some books on the shelves in my classroom that depict positive and loving GLBT relationships. Any help would be much appreciated! I teach high school juniors, so for the most part, they're reading adult fiction by the time they get to me.

Anyway, I was hoping to gather a list of recommended titles for both relationships and issues surrounding coming out/questioning. 

Also, any links to multiple recommended titles, etc. would also be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

One of the best books I have read dealing with a young gay male......http://www.amazon.com/Leave-Myself-Behind-Bart-Yates/dp/0758203497/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1198917544&sr=1-2

This is a good one, too:

http://www.amazon.com/Annie-My-Mind-Nancy-Garden/dp/0374400113/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1199006123&sr=8-1

The Geography Club was really good and pretty much anything by Sanchez ....oh and Keeping you a Secret & Luna by Julie Anne Peters and she has a new one grl 2 grl - which is a bunch of short stories about coming out.  I also agree with Charlie one of my favorite books was Leave Myself Behind. 

I have to digress here this is not within the question you were asking but I also would strongly recommend any teacher who is looking for a good book for their classroom read Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson (she also wrote Fever 1973).  Apparently some schools are actually using this book for required reading, which I think is fabulous.  The edition I have has a really interesting interview with the author in the back. 

"Love Makes a Family: Portraits of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Parents and Their Families"  http://www.amazon.com/Love-Makes-Family-Portraits-Transgender/dp/1558491619/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1199109719&sr=8-1

Thanks everyone, and do feel free to continue to add titles.

I need to check out GLSEN's & PFLAG's web site to see if they also have recommendations.

Again, any additional links would help out too!

Lastly, I will head now to forward this post link to the teacher...

Hey Richard - here's a wishlist I developed over at Amazon I have different categories - gay men, lesbians, young children, trans..., young adult (teen) and adult.

Here's the link (I hope that this works for the young adult/teen list  http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/RNSKGS0N07EP/ref=cm_wl_rlist_go  Maybe this will help.

That is awesome Mary, and thank you  :-)

You are very welcomed.  I keep the list as current as possible because whenever our center has money specifically for books & dvd's, I get to order.  What a rough volunteer job eh? ;-)

Get some of Francesca Lia Blocks' books. The Weetzie Bat series is really great. Some teens in my class read it last semester and it got them questioning their values around being gay. I was very intrigued at the results. I bought the series as a whole: Dangerous Angels http://www.amazon.com/Dangerous-Angels-Weetzie-Bat-Books/dp/0064406970/ref=pd_bbs_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1199827547&sr=8-2 I think that some of her other books have LGBTQ relationships but I haven't had time to tackle them in my TBR pile. =/

ETA: This is a fiction book BTW. I noticed a lot of the other recs were nonfiction. I really connect with issues in fiction though. (=