Title: Annie on My MindAuthor: Nancy Garden
Publish Date: July 1982
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Pages: 272pp
ISBN: 0374303665
Classification: Fiction
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Age Range: 12 and up
Amazon: $8.00
Annotation: Liza and Annie have been friends since the early days in high school, as the years go by they become more then friends, they fall in love. When their love is discovered, their world collapses, thus creating a drift between Liza and Annie.
Summary: Liza, conventional senior class president of her prep school, meets imaginative and playful Annie and begins a friendship that blossoms into a romantic relationship. Despite pressures from family and school that threaten their relationship, Liza and Annie promise to remain true to one another and their feelings. When their private lives are thrust into public view, their world collapses into turmoil and Liza breaks away from Annie. The story is narrated by Liza's thoughts as she attempts to write Annie a letter, in response to the many letters Annie has sent her.
Evaluation: I found Annie on My Mind to be a poignant story about the struggles of being young and falling in love with a person of the same sex. While the story itself is mild, I found that the struggles and uncertainties fall true for just about any young person who is falling love for the first time (gay or straight). Because this was written in a time where homosexuality was frowned upon I can see the uniqueness, I am just glad our society is slowly breaking those barriers. I feel this is an important book to have on every library shelf and personally, I am happy to have it on mine.
Bibliotherapeutic Usefulness:
- Coming of age-coming out.
- Love is genderless.
- Falling in love for the first time.
Reason this book was chosen: One of the reason’s this book was chosen was because it was required, the other reason is because of Nancy Garden. She is an inspiration for the youth of the LGBTQ community. Her story, Annie on My Mind, is just that, her actual story. An extremely important story for adolescents to have access too.
Similar Titles:
Awards:
ALA Popular Paperbacks for Young Adult Readers, 1997
ALA Best Books for Young Adults, 1982
