Blackbird
Age band: 13+
Looky Rating System: Violence 2/5, Love & Romance 4/5, Mental Health 1/5, Language 2/5, Substance Use 0/5, Fear / Horror 0/5, Fantasy / Supernatural 0/5, LGBTQ+ Representation 5/5.
Description
First published by St. Martins in 1986, Blackbird is a funny, moving, gay coming-of-age novel about growing up black and gay in Southern California. The lead character, Johnnie Ray Rousseau, is a high school student upset at losing the lead role in the school staging of Romeo and Juliet; if that werent enough, his best friend has been beaten badly by his father, and his girlfriend is pressuring him to have sex for the first time.