Rainbow Party

website accessibility-children's literature: A great book
Another suggested book in my YA lit class is a controvercial one- "Rainbow Party" by Paul Ruditis. I had never heard of this one to, and had to order it- Borders will not carry it in their stores. If you want to get it for your teen, a WARNING ...it is about sex. And not just sex- a bunch of teens are planning a 'rainbow party'. So? A rainbow party consists of 6 girls and 6 guys. Each girl wears a different lipstick color (red, yellow, orange, green, purple and blue) and they take turns giving each boy oral sex so they have a 'rainbow' around their....well, you get it. http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2005-05-22-rainbow-usat_x.htm is a general article (many others are similar) on the book. Of course the book (and its language, which I have heard 14-year-olds say many times) will be controvercial. I found it interesting, not that it was particularily well-written (it isn't) or the characters interesting (except for the sex-ed teacher, they are superficial), or the language shocking to me. It was that, as a 40-year-old who has been around, I had never heard of a rainbow party, and to find out that this is a supposed growing practice among young teens (according to Oprah). Yikes-and I wasn't allowed to even date til I was 16.....
Anyways, it is an interesting book, and how to handle this in a library setting would be interesting......cannot wait til we have our lecture on banned books in class!!! When I was 14, "Forever" by Judy Blume was the book to sneak home to read. Seems tame in comparison.....