National Public Radio - Books has a list of potential good books for the summer!
"Summer Books 2012: The Complete List."  includes recommendations from indie booksellers, 13 Great Books on the Horizon, suggestions from Nancy Pearl, and cookbooks. See links at bottom of page for covers of and details about books.

novels of LGBTQ

Almost Perfect by Brian Katcher looks at many facets of life for a transgendered teenager. While the story wasn't "perfect" for me, I do appreciate that the characters are composites of many real people.
Almost Perfect adds to a genre that many teenagers (and adults) need to explore or learn about in order to help him/herself and/or to support others. I would pair this book with She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders by Jennifer Finney Boylan.

However, I like the teen characters in Almost Perfect. As an adult, I enjoyed She's Not There, and I will recommend it to teens. If I have a student read it, I'll be eager to know if he/she can appreciate the story since the focus is more on adulthood of Boylan rather than childhood. I also hope to have students read Almost Perfect, as I wonder if students know someone like Logan. He seemed almost too sophisticated emotionally.

I wonder, though, if a book like Almost Perfect will be read by a male audience. The cover lends itself to a female audience. While we should not judge a book by its cover, we do. This is one of several books I've read that has male characters, yet I doubt the cover would be read by many males. I know so much time is spent on book jackets, and would like to see something more suited for male readers.

I do hope that these stories are being read by those who really need these stories. To know that all the Sages out there are accepted by others, embraced wholeheartedly, and supported in the process would be such a statement towards cultural diversity.

History in a "new" light in New Boy by Julian Houston

Not to judge books by covers, New Boy by Julian Houston may be overlooked by its cover. Rob Garrett is one of the new students at Draper, a boarding school in Connecticut. Up from Virginia, Rob is also the first African-American student to attend. Jim Crow laws are still in effect in the South, yet the rumblings of change and action are starting.

Rob experiences racism and prejudice between all races and ethnic groups, and realizes that he isn't the only one that has such experiences. Yet, he also discovers that maybe he should have done more to help a friend.
Rob's friendship with Gordie brings to light not only the fact that he can be friends with someone who "seems" different from himself, but that prejudice can occur within his own race; a hard reality, but one that lights a fire within Rob. He is motivated to make change for his generation, and becomes involved in a student group to organize a sit-in at his local Woolworth's restaurant.

Not held down in details, Houston writes a realistic tale of a young boy experiences personal motivation for change, love, freedom, and self-reliance. A bit of U.S. history in an easy-to-read and engaging format. A lesson for us all.

Where to Find Free Online Books

If you just blew your budget buying an ipad or kindle ...and don't have money to actually buy books, see some quality resources for online books:

Online Books Page of the University of Pennsylvania -one million+ free books; a majority are older titles but some are newer

• use for research! for example - browse by call number or alphabetical subject list
  many of the titles are pulled from U.S. govt. docs and the Gutenberg Project
• browse Library of Congress subjects and find: Measuring America: The Decennial Censuses From 1790 to 2000, by Jason Gauthier (PDF at census.gov)
• You can read many banned books online! see curated list of banned books

Project Gutenberg - digital books with expired copyrights  

• use for research -& and bookmark while reading!
• see: top 100 downloads
• 
  see also: offline book catalogs to download and use at home

Read Print Library - thousands of classics books online; see also poems & short stories

AskSam Ebooks has a collection of free e-books (classic literature), and legal and government texts.

BookBoon – Provides free ebooks textbooks for students and travelers in PDF format. No registration is required.

Book Gold Mine - large collection of quality e-books, lectures, notes, and other kinds of documents at no cost to the user; great for computer science, business, biology, physics, and math texts

EBooks Directory - 5572 free e-books in 535 categories - free web resource which contains links to free downloadable e-books, technical papers, documents, as well as user contributed content, articles, reviews and comments. 


Alex Catalogue of Electronic Books: focus is on history and philosophy titles

Google Books: one million+ titles in the public domain


Bartleby - diverse collection


Great Books and Classics: as advertised in the title, a collection of classics

Kindle Resources:

I Love My Kindle - blog for finding some ebook deals

A Kindle World Blog - finding Amazon deals


Free Kindle Classics List from Amazon

History in a Murder Mystery!

31 Bond Street by Ellen Horan - a murder mystery with a complex interplay of characters within the main storyline and those on the periphery. There is no obvious answer to the crime!
This story is based on a true event that happened in New York City in the 1850s. The death and the trial was the talk of the town!

Depth and complexity in Crazy by Han Nolan

Crazy by Han Nolan is a well-written story with thoughtful and complex dialogue between Jason and his “friends.” The dynamic interplay that brings to life the voices in Jason’s head reflects a sensitive and acute awareness of the reality of one’s life with such circumstances.

Through no conscious effort of his own, Jason has caught the attention of his English teacher and, as a result, will have to meet with Dr. Gomez, the school social worker, on a regular basis. He’s not sure how he can hide his real life from Dr. Gomez and the other students in the group. The silver lining is that these friends may be just the therapy he needs to reconcile the loss of his mother, and quite possibly, the loss of his father.

A book not to be overlooked by teenagers or adults.

Han Nolan is winner of National Book Award for Dancing on the Edge.