Product Description

A gay 12 year old boy begins his first year of junior high with the vow that this will be the year that he kisses a boy. Like The Tragedy of Miss Geneva Flowers—only lighter, brighter and more youthful—The Boys and the Bees is set in Minneapolis and involves a confused but sweet adolescent kid coming to grips with growing up gay and feeling completely lost about it.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #460885 in Books
• Published on: 2005-12-20
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 137 pages

From Publishers Weekly
This wry account of adolescent same-sex stirrings avoids the flamboyant drag queens, messy crystal meth addiction and suicidal moments of its predecessor, The Tragedy of Miss Geneva Flowers (though it does share that story's optimistic ending), focusing instead on teen angst that's more hormonal than melodramatic. Eleven-year-old Andy, the novel's precocious narrator, enters sixth grade at his buttoned-down Catholic school in St. Paul, Minn., aching with bottled-up desire—specifically for star athlete Mark—even though the captain of the basketball team is apparently courting the prettiest girl in the school. At the same time, because he's still closeted, Andy is increasingly flustered by his friendship with school "faggot" James and tries to distance himself from his obvious but persistent best friend. Meanwhile, the sports stud whose handsome blondness Andy covets is struggling secretly with his own conflicted sexuality. Though this isn't being marketed as a YA title, Babcock's empathic rendering of his young characters' voices makes it more than suitable for readers the age of the three boys who form the novel's romantic tangle. (Feb.)
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Review
"Joe Babcock effortlessly captures a voice rarely heard." - JT LeRoy (author of Sarah - Bloomsbury)"

About the Author

Customer Reviews

The Boys and the Bees
"The Boys and the Bees" so beautifully captures that brief moment in time between Power Ranger pajamas and sex. Andy is a young boy who can't quite understand why he's infatuated with the basketball star and not the least bit interested in the beauty queen. This sounds like the set-up to a sappy, melodramatic "gay novel" for the younger set; however, Joe Babcock rises above the genre and produces a crisp and sparkling story that avoids all the usual pitfalls of gay lit.

Andy's is a voice rarely heard - a twelve year old whose priorities change in the blink of an eye. Babcock refuses to speak down to his young audience, while being careful not to go too far in the opposite direction (think Dawson's Creek). He manages to maintain an accurate depiction of adolescence, overflowing with gentle comedy and moving sincerity. So whether you're gay or straight, young or old, male or female, each sentence is so rich with meaning that you'll instantly be hurled back into your childhood - a time when every obstacle seemed so utterly monumental, yet was so easily resolved by an episode of Beverly Hills, 90210.

Wise, witty, bittersweet - never cheesy - "The Boys and the Bees" is a stellar coming of age story by virtue of not really being one. Rather, it's a beautiful snapshot of a young boy that Joe Babcock has brought to life for a hundred and some odd pages. We all should be so lucky to hand our photographs over to this author and have him spin a story far better than our memories.

This is truly a remarkable piece of writing.

Light novel recommended for young gay teens
The author of the (somewhat dark but delightful) gay teen novel "The Tragedy of Miss Geneva Flowers" is back, this time with a much lighter story of an 11 year old boy in Catholic school, Andy, whose teenage angst is directed into a crush on the school's star basketball player, Mark. Trying to impress Mark and his friends, Andy distances himself from his best friend James, whose effeminate mannerisms have made him a favorite target of the older boys to taunt and ridicule. Andy also finds himself at odds with Anna, who is fond of Mark and is jealous of the time Mark spends with Andy, trying to help him make the school basketball team. At night, Andy retreats to his typewriter, where he buries his emotions into his "novel," a story of a shy country girl who has a secret crush on a handsome boy, not so coincidentally named Mark.

Coming in at just 137 pages (the original listing on Amazon erroneously said 230 pages), the novel is a bit lightweight and predictable for adults, although it is recommended for young gay or questioning teens as a harmless gay-positive tale, without any explicit content, to make them feel better about themselves. In that latter context, I'd give the book four stars out of five.

one for all and all for one...
My fifth book of this year was Joe Babcock's "The Boys and the Bees" a charming short book about coming of age. It took me right to my old school pictures. You know the ones with all your classmates together? I could see the boys and girls who gave me trouble in school, but didn't remember their names. I did however remember my Mark; named Craig and my James; named Leroy. I only remembered them because I loved them like Andy loved James and Mark. I enjoyed this book and liked the way it ended because it could lead to another book. - Joe - TX