Luna

Title: Luna

Author: Julie Anne Peters

ISBN: 9780316011273

Publisher: Little, Brown

Copyright: 2004

Genre: Fiction

Age Range: 15+

Reader’s Annotation: Luna by night, Liam by day, see through Regan’s eyes the changes that her transgender brother makes.

Plot Summary: Regan is a sixteen year old secret keeper. The secret she keeps is that her older brother Liam is a transgender boy. During the day, Liam is the above average senior high school student with a job on the side building computers and fixing computer bugs with his best friend Aly. At night, Liam transforms into Luna, once known as Lia Marie. The name change is due to the fact that he can only be a girl at night when no one can see. After years of this, he confesses to Regan that he wants to make the change into a real woman.

            Regan is a below average student. She spends most of her time avoiding people to keep Liam’s secret. She starts seeing Chris, a new boy, and she enjoys having the attention lay squarely on her for a change. One night they go out to a party. She is supposed to be babysitting at a neighbor’s house that she considers her “normal family.” This is due to the breadwinning, pill popping mom and over compensating, macho dad she has along with the transgender brother. The parents she babysits for come home early to find Liam in the woman’s lingerie as Luna. The whole debacle costs Regan her job. Regan is livid. She tries to make sense of her brother’s transition and fears for his safety and the destruction of her own live. More and more, Liam lets Luna out during the daylight. More and more, Liam is disappearing. With Liam’s eighteenth birthday in sight, he may never return from the transition. But, Regan might just have a new sister.

Critical Evaluation: Luna has won numerous awards. In 2004, it was a National Book Award finalist. In 2005, it was a Stonewall Honor Book, ALA Best Book for Young Adults, Lambda Literary Award finalist, and nominated for multiple state book awards. It is a book that has been held in high esteem by the literary and library world. It is an important book to have in a library collection because it takes on the tough story of a transgender boy trying to figure out being a girl. It deals with all of the social stigma that transgender people have to endure. It also shows the family drama that can come out when a teen swaps their birth gender for what they feel is their true gender. It is a compact punch of reality shown through the eyes of a sibling that is struggling through her own problems and life. Peters is an amazing writer that has produce many books in the LBGT genre that help teens find out who they are. She has won numerous awards.

Author Information: Julie Anne Peters is the critically-acclaimed, award winning author of more than a dozen books for young adults and children. Her book, Luna, was a National Book Award Finalist; Keeping You a Secret  was named a Stonewall Honor Book; Between Mom and Jo won a Lambda Literary Award; and Define “Normal” was voted by young readers as their favorite book of the year in California and Maryland. Julie’s books have been published in numerous countries, including Korea, China, Croatia, Germany, France, Italy, Indonesia, Turkey, and Brazil.

She is a member of The Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, PEN America, Colorado Authors League, and The Author's Guild.

Julie loves writing because she gets to be her own boss and doesn't have to work in an office cubicle. It's hard to think outside the box when you work in a cube. She lives in Lakewood, Colorado, with her partner, Sherri, and far too many cats. The cats are under the impression that they're creative geniuses, since they spend a majority of their day walking back and forth across her computer keyboard. They probably generate more words per day than she does, but who can read cat gibberish? Source - http://www.julieannepeters.com/files/JPBio.htm

Curriculum Ties: LGBT Studies, Psychology

Challenge Issues: Tran-Sexuality; Gender Identification; Disobeying Parents

Booktalk Ideas: Trapped – Talk about being trapped as something that one is not. Talk about how Luna is trapped inside Liam.