reviews_and_ramblings | Persistent Voices: Lynn Hall

Lynn Hall was born November 9, 1937 in Lombard, IL and, due to several family moves, attended schools in Iowa. She married Dean W. Green in May 1960 and divorced in September 1961. Hall worked at a succession of jobs from the mid-50s to the mid-60s. Her first book, The Shy Ones, was written in 1967. She has written dozens of books for children, some juvenile nonfiction, and a number of young adult novels. Many of her works features dogs or horses. Her book, The Leaving, received the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for fiction (1981). Many of her books have received awards and recognition.

Source: http://special.lib.umn.edu/findaid/xml/CLRC-783.xml (Something About the Author. The Gale Group, 1995)

Sticks and Stones by Lynn Hall
Hardcover: 220 pages
Publisher: Wilcox & Follett Book Co; First Printing/Pages Riped edition (January 1977)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0695802372
ISBN-13: 978-0695802370
Amazon: Sticks and Stones

A seventeen-year-old boy's life is nearly destroyed when a rumor that he is homosexual is started in his new high school.

If I had not come across Lynn Hall‘s book when I was struggling to define my own sexuality, I might not have survived to write this essay of my own experiences. In it I had Ward Alexander and the knowledge that there was someone else like me in the world; I wasn‘t the only one. Would my experience have been different if the original ending had united Tom and Ward? Not necessarily, but it would have shown me that men could commit to one another in romantic relationships built on love, trust and mutual respect. If I could return and tell my teenage self what I know now, I‘d assure him that the isolation and social ostracizing that he‘d experienced helped him become the person, and the artist, that he is today. I‘d tell him to have enough confidence to look his tormentors in the eye and say, ―I‘m gay, so what?‖ and disempower their accusations. I have told this much of my story to my youngest brother, who is coming to terms with his own sexuality. It is both a challenge and an honor to assist him where I can while allowing him the space to learn on his own.

I am astounded at how much has changed since the early 80s when I‘d first read Sticks and Stones. Literature plays such a minor role in our community now, when it used to be the primary means of uniting and informing our community. I grew up in the brief span between pulp fiction and the representation of gays and lesbians in the media at large, and certainly before the Internet allowed us to connect in ways we‘d never dreamed of. Despite those advances, kids continue to struggle with their own questions and suffer the cruelty of their peers. Gay kids are still three times more likely to attempt suicide, develop substance abuse, and run away from home. It is up to us as a community to present positive role models in young adult literature so they know they are not alone, and that there are many ways for them to grow into gay adults. --Sean Meriwether, The Lost Library: Gay Fiction Rediscovered