Like meeting someone from the Internet in a dark, scary park in the middle of the night. I found this book difficult to get into, maybe because the language used seemed kind of unrealistic for teens and the situations were a little too “now you are being treated the way you treated others learn a lesson!” Also, I’m kind of surprised that West Bend Citizens for Safe Libraries only objects to the fact that gay people exist in this book, because there are all kinds of unsafe behaviors going on that I find way more troubling. Because they don’t want any unwanted public attention, they decide to name the club “Geography Club” because it’s the most boring thing they can think of to keep other people away. Russel is shocked when it turns out to be Kevin, super jock star of the baseball team! Soon after he discovers other gay or lesbian teens keeping their own secrets–including one of his best friends–and they decide to form an after-school club to discuss their commonalities and just hang out with people who know their secret. Then he meets another gay teen in a chat room from his home town, and they agree to meet. Russel thinks he’s the only gay person at his school, and spends his days feeling horribly alone and terrified that at any time his secret might be somehow revealed, bringing with it social ostracism and possible violence. Great job, West Bend, that’s pretty much the opposite of what we need. It sounds more to me like West Bend Citizens for Safe Libraries is actually trying to “protect” teens from positive images of gay people in the misguided belief that not reading Geography Club will keep them safely heterosexual, or at least safely in the closet and depressed.
The first person narrator only gets a few kisses over the course of the book, and anyone else who goes farther only mentions it rather obliquely. On the one hand, labeling all the books that mention sex WOULD make their circulation suddenly go through the roof, but on the other hand, anyone picking up Geography Club because of its supposed sexiness is going to be extremely disappointed. The West Bend Citizens for Safe Libraries campaigned for about four months to have sexually explicit materials from the young adult section moved to the adult section and labelled “as containing sexual material”. West Bend was also the community going after Baby Be-Bop, so it is possible that their definition of “pornography” is “mentioning gay people”.
Challenged at: West Bend, Wisconsin Community Libraryįor: “being obscene or child pornography” in a section designated for young adults
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