Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

My just-turned-9-year-old has been begging to read Raina Telgemeier’s Drama for probably a year; she checked it out of her school library this past week, and I promised I’d preview it and make a decision as soon as possible.  (I’ve been putting her off because I knew it was a bit different thematically than Telgemeier’s other books.)  I’ve been slogging through it all weekend, and hallelujah!  I finished it this morning.

My decision, of course, is to hand it off to my two eager older girls; there’s nothing in it that warrants keeping it from them.  I did talk with them both about it, because one of its major themes is being gay as an early teenager.  The jist of the conversation was this–it’s absolutely true that you’re still a regular, normal person when you’re gay; it should never affect how you’re treated by the people around you.  In our faith, however, we don’t believe in acting on feelings for the same sex, because we believe doing so severely limits our ability to carry out our purpose upon this earth.  We believe that we are here to become more like Christ ourselves and to help others come to earth and become more like Christ as well.  A big part of that is forming families and having children.  That doesn’t mean that we’re snotty and tell those who disagree that we know better; it means that we are comfortable, ourselves, with what we believe, we act according to our beliefs, and we respect the right of everyone we meet to do the same.

That said, as much as I’ve enjoyed Telegemeier’s other books, I’m pretty ambivalent about this one.  The actual theater bits–everything related to the play itself–were a blast.  The I-like-this-boy-no-that-boy-no-the-other-boy, not to mention the I’m-acting-weird-because-I-feel-a-certain-way-but-haven’t-expressed-it, were incredibly, spot-on junior high for me, but I AM 39 YEARS OLD.  I DON’T WANT TO BE BACK IN JUNIOR HIGH.

Seriously.  Very true to the period of life, GREAT for the intended audience, but not anywhere I want to be.  Telgemeier’s other books dealt with themes I could still relate to; Drama is fairly stage-of-life specific, and I am just so DESPERATELY glad not to be in that stage of life anymore that reading about it was okay at best.  Surely I’m not the only one with no desire to revisit that time of life?

Anyway.  There you have it–and now my girls will have it.  Let’s just hope I don’t dream about being 12 again tonight…