Product Description

Lambda Literary Award winner Good Moon Rising is about two young women who fall in love while rehearsing a school play, realize they’re gay, and resist a homophobic campaign against them. Good Moon Rising, both a New York Public Library Book for the Teenage and a Notable Children’s Trade Book in the Field of Social Studies, “takes us into the dynamics of homophobia” (Horn Book). “Garden, who gave us one of the first honest, sensitive portrayals of two young women in love in the brilliant Anne On My Mind, Farrar, 1982, offers us another thought-provoking story of homosexual love.”—Voya

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #416624 in Books
• Published on: 2005-07-19
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

Amazon.com Review
Nancy Garden's Annie on My Mind is the classic lesbian young adult novel. It is so truthful and honest, it has been banned from many school libraries and even publicly burned in Kansas City. Her newest novel, Good Moon Rising, is also about a young teenage lesbian and is as moving and startling as Annie. Jan and Kerry are two aspiring actresses in high school. When they begin working on a production of The Crucible -- not coincidentally about another kind of witchhunt -- they find that they are at the center of a social and academic controversy. As always, Garden understands the problems of young people, the prevalence of social homophobia, and pain of being an outcast. Good Moon Rising is mandatory reading for anyone interested in the problems faced by gay youth today, or for that matter, the problems faced by gay people everywhere.

From School Library Journal
Grade 8 Up?Jan is a high school senior, just back from summer stock and hoping for the role of Elizabeth in the school production of The Crucible. When a new student named Kerry gets the part, Jan's larger-than-life mentor, Mrs. Nicholson, assigns Jan to be stage manager instead. Then, as stand-in director when Mrs. Nicholson falls ill, Jan coaches Kerry. Eventually, the two realize that they are sexually attracted to one another. Other cast members notice, too. Some harass them, threatening the success of the play; others think it's nobody's business. Told in third-person narrative, this is a straightforward story of teen romance with a '90s twist. It gets off to a slow start, but tension builds as the young women receive increasingly disturbing hate messages. They finally "come out," affirming their feelings and undercutting the clique that had targeted them. Allusion to Salem witch hunts of the 17th century is obvious but effective, and the novel is well paced. Some may call this story a rehash of Garden's Annie on My Mind (Farrar, 1992), but it's more of an update. Although M.E. Kerr's Deliver Us from Evie (HarperCollins, 1994) is stronger, Good Moon Rising will find grateful readers among some of the same kids who appreciated that book.?Claudia Morrow, Berkeley Public Library, CA
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Gr. 9^-12. Another lesbian love story by the author of the widely praised and widely condemned Annie on My Mind (1982), this novel, set in a small New Hampshire town, will have more immediacy for YAs since it is not cast in a retrospective mode. High-school senior Janna Montcrief is sure she will get the part of Elizabeth Procter in this year's junior-senior play, Arthur Miller's The Crucible; but enter Kerry Socrides, new junior and a dead ringer for Elizabeth. Bitter at first at being appointed stage manager instead of getting the role, Jan comes to realize her directing potential and thrills to the feeling of putting a patchwork of scenes together to create a total, powerful play. She also gets to know and like Kerry by coaching her and gradually becomes aware that her feelings for Kerry go beyond friendship. The love relationship between the two girls evolves tentatively until the first quick, soft kiss on the lips. The sex scenes lack explicitness beyond the fumbling fondling typical of teen romances. As Jan and Kerry begin spending more and more time together, suspicions arise, and gay baiting begins, led by the determinedly macho Kent. Characterizations ring true, with one exception: Jan's summer stock gay friend, Raphael; although he plays a pivotal part in the girls' coming out, we just don't get to know him well enough to get beyond the stereotype; also, his letter to Jan seems contrived to get AIDS information across. Otherwise, the school scene, the play rehearsals, the interactions between characters, and the support the girls get when they finally squelch the rumors by coming out are natural and believable. Garden offers no easy answers: true, the gay bashers are suspended, but what will happen when they return to school, and how will the student body at large react to Jan and Kerry's love? Sally Estes

Customer Reviews

Nancy Garden's finest...
Having heard so much about Nancy Garden, I ran right to the library and got Annie On My Mind. The book was wonderful and very educational about the emotional aspects of a young lesbian partnership. So naturally, when I heard about Good Moon Rising, I went to the library to get that as well. I finished it in a period of three hours, never putting it down once. This has to be one of the most well-written, true-to-life, amazing books I have ever read. It comes straight from the heart and, at some points, made me cry. As a fifteen-year-old lesbian, I can't even begin to say how much I relate to this story. Many thank-yous to Nancy Garden for her fine writing. I would recommend this book to anyone, gay or straight, to remind them of the powers of homophobia and how it affects the people on the receiving end of it.

More of the same..
I'm not trying to bag on Nancy Garden or anything, because AOMM was one of the best books I've ever read. But Good Moon Rising just wasn't its own story. A light-haired girl falls in love with a sort of mysterious dark-haired girl, they have their little fantasy world, etc. I mean, their love was totally convincing and beautiful in AOMM, but in GMR it was kind of flat, as were most of the other characters, too; certain people were all goodness and kindness, and other people were one-dimensionally evil. Though the parallels with The Crucible were clever, this novel just doesn't cut it on its own.

Not as good as "Annie"
But a worthwhile read. The harassment the girls experience because of their suspected relationship is realistic and heartbreaking. The bravery required to come out is heartening. This is a fine novel for both gay and straight teens to read to gain better understanding of the difficulties of being gay in America. We need more books like this!