Everything You Need to Know About Sexual Identity (Need to Know Library)

Describes the issue of sexual identity, providing insight on what it means to be heterosexual, bixexual, or homosexual.

Gr 6-10-A substandard hi/lo guide written at about a fourth-grade reading level for gay/lesbian youth covering such predictable chapters as "How Do I Know?," "Coming Out," and "Love and Sex." The author talks down to teens; gives them no new information; employs outdated terminology, such as, sexual preference rather than sexual orientation; uses ridiculous, canned medical stock photos; and insults transgender people by setting off "information" about their sexual identity in two bordered gray-colored pages. The glossary and list of resources are also inadequate. A good young adult book on sexual-identity development written in understandable language is needed. As for a guidebook for GLBT teens, almost any book in your libraries would be better, but Ellen Bass and Kate Kaufman's Free Your Mind (HarperPerennial, 1996) or Eric Marcus's Is It a Choice? (HarperSanFrancisco, 1999) are particularly strong choices.-Betty S. Evans, Southwest Missouri State University, Springfield

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