COMING OF AGE QUEER STYLE

The Boys and the Bees by Joe Babcock (Carroll & Graf, $12.95)

I would have killed for a book like The Boys and the Bees when I was twelve.
The year was 1986. I was a regular on the honor roll, a right halfback on the school soccer team, a huge Madonna fan and - you guessed it - a total homo. I avoided detection by feigning eagerness at my friend Jennifer’s spin the bottle parties.
To my delight and occasional shame, I had a boyfriend on the sly. My neighbor Johnny Singer was a budding sexual misfit, too, and it didn’t take long for our play sessions to escalate into a naked romp we called “Capture the Prisoner.”
Johnny knew that I was gay and I knew that Johnny was gay, but we never said the word out loud. I had no one to talk to about my sexuality at home or at school, and in all my reading I never came across a book that broached the topic of queer kids.
The best praise I can give the new young adult novel The Boys and the Bees is that it’s exactly the kind of book that would have made me feel less alone and scared when I was twelve. It’s written by 26-year-old Minneapolis writer Joe Babcock, a Lambda Award-winner for his first novel The Tragedy of Miss Geneva Flowers.
Narrated by a closeted sixth grade boy named Andy, The Boys and the Bees is a short, funny and generally realistic novel that’s ideal for any middle school-aged child questioning his or her sexuality. The book is also a great resource for parents who want to discuss sexual identity issues with kids in this age group.
The plot concerns a love triangle between three boys. Andy, an aspiring writer, attends a Catholic school with his best friend, James. Andy loves to fool around with James during sleepovers, but he keeps his distance from James at school for fear that the popular clique will think he’s gay. Mark, a handsome basketball player who may or may not be queer, completes the triangle.
The plot may lack ingenuity, but Babcock’s writing is lively and enjoyable. Best of all his prose is life-affirming, transmitting the powerful signal that being gay is nothing to be ashamed of.