There are lots of books that make me think: I don’t care what’s in them as long as they’re written beautifully.
—Lydia Davis, BOMB 60, 1997
LBGTQ* Young Audience Novels To Keep On Your Radar
Deliver Us from Evie - M. E. Kerr
A skilled mechanic and farmer on her family’s Missouri spread, Evie Burrman, 17, has a streak of blond in her slicked-back dark hair, a sign quietly calculated to ward off other people’s assumptions-for starters, that she’ll marry Cord Whittle, and that she’ll help Dad keep the farm going. Evie’s story is affectingly told by her younger brother, Parr, who understands as their parents cannot that Evie is falling in love, not with Cord Whittle, but with the daughter of the man who holds the mortgage on their farm. Parr’s observations are telling: “You’d say Evie was handsome. You’d say Mom was pretty.” Meanwhile, Parr falls for a girl whose fundamentalist family is fearful of gayness, and tension builds slowly until the truth about Evie explodes out of Parr, not just to their parents, but to the whole town. This is first-rate storytelling, with Kerr in absolute control of the narrative. Evie never seems a victim, nor are there villains. With the exception of the rich man who holds the Burrman mortgage, all of the characters are likable. All are survivors. Among the most convincing lesbian characters in young adult fiction, Evie makes a lasting impression, and Parr himself, the loving but conflicted brother, is just as finely drawn and memorable.
Claudia Morrow, Berkeley Public Library, CA
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
FACT: Most people think lesbians are attracted to every single girl with a vagina. They couldn’t be more wrong
1. If you work hard, and become successful, it does not necessarily mean you are successful because you worked hard, just as if you are tall with long hair it doesn’t mean you would be a midget if you were bald.
2. “Fortune” is a word for having a lot of money and for having a lot of luck,…
