Fandom squee post

[evil_plotbunny]

The nice thing about children's book fandoms is they're mostly short (I'm looking at you, Chalet School), so now might be the perfect time to pick up a new fandom or revisit an old favorite.

Tell us why we should read your awesome fandom in the comments. Don't forget to link to legal sources, if they're available. Many long out of print books are now appearing as ebooks. And there's always the library.

Comments

Am I Blue? - Bruce Coville

[pleonasm]

This is the title story from an anthology of the same name, with the theme of GBL teenagers. It's one of the very first stories I ever read with gay people as the main character, and it's really easy to find online if you do a quick google. It seems that a lot of universities like to use it as part of their courses.

The basic story is about a young boy who is being bullied for being gay. He hasn't decided himself whether or not he's gay, but someone shows up to grant him three wishes - Melvin, his fairy godfather. Melvin takes him on a brief and friendly tour of gay culture, and then comes the explanation of the Big Gay Fantasy - what if all gay folks were blue-skinned one day, so that everyone was out and straight people saw all the gay people living and working with them? The story here is a bit dated, I'll acknowledge - I think we're doing pretty good with visibility in the US nowadays - but the story is really charming and it's totally worth the 10 minutes you'd spend reading it.