The Stone Rainbow

August 2, 2019

Gr 7-10-Jackson Pedersen is a miserable, gay, small-town teen with a reputation as a wet blanket. He has one close friend, Ryan, who uses a wheelchair. When the school's new vice principal turns out to have a gorgeous, comfortably gay son, Jack begins to emerge from his funk. Shaw's work here is disappointingly unengaging as narrator Jack, and his fellow characters all seem to be five or six years younger than their purported 17-20 years old. Issues of gender and sexual orientation are muddled and both Ryan and a third straight male character are sometimes reminiscent of Highlights magazine's Goofus and Gallant in their approach to social cues. Actions and feelings are reported rather than shown and some stretch credulity to the breaking point, such as the high school seniors being given a school day off to prepare for a Saturday Pride parade. VERDICT This is a marginal addition at best and then of interest to communities, like Jack's, who insist they have only one gay teen among them.-Francisca Goldsmith, Library Ronin, Worcester, MA

Copyright 2019 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 15, 2019
A closeted teen galvanizes his small town's first-ever Pride parade. Months after Ryan saved Jack from drowning, Jack wonders if they're really friends at all. Meanwhile, Jack takes swimming lessons from Cody, a Thompson Mills "triple threat" ("misogynistic, homophobic, and relatively racist"). Things on the friendship front start to look up when gorgeous, city boy Benjamin shows up in art class. As luck would have it, Benjamin is gay, too. But, unlike Jack, Benjamin has no intention of hiding it. After a tragic accident sends Benjamin to the hospital, Jack decides to show Thompson Mills--a town that's "so small that being different usually means you're flying solo"--exactly what community looks like. This companion novel to Shaw's Caterpillars Can't Swim (2017) shifts the first-person narrative focus to Jack instead of Ryan. Though there are two biracial leads (Jack is Guatemalan/white, Benjamin is Chinese/white), their descriptions name and focus on their nonwhite ancestry in a way that only serves to emphasize whiteness as the default. Ryan has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair. This story of rural Pride is at times inspirational, but it is flattened by Shaw's perpetuation of queer stereotypes (e.g., the camp gay mentor). Nonetheless, the intersectional characters make this "out of the closet, into the fire" tale a slight scratch above the rest. Unlikely to draw much of a crowd--but it could be meaningful to the readers who need it most. (Fiction. 13-18)

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September 16, 2019
High school senior Jackson is just waiting for a chance to leave his small town, Thompson Mills, and its residents’ small minds, so that he can come out as gay and really start his life. But when a new student, Benjamin, shows up, he finds himself challenged in all new ways: Benjamin is out and proud, and Jackson is enamored. As the two begin a slow dance into romance, Benjamin pushes back against homophobia and is met with slurs, threats, and, eventually, violence. As Benjamin recovers, Jackson has to decide whether he’s willing to stand up in the face of danger and resist intolerance, or return to hiding his identity. Shaw (Caterpillars Can’t Swim) creates a realistically diverse cast in this slow-paced but full-hearted novel. While the story explores the intensity of both first love and vehement discrimination, it also presents joy and hope for its characters, and will likely find fans among YA readers. Ages 12–up.