Alex Sanchez
Encyclopedia
Alex Sánchez is a Mexican-American author of award-winning novels for teens and adults. His first novel, Rainbow Boys
(2001), was selected by the American Library Association
(ALA), as a “Best Book for Young Adults”. Subsequent books have won additional awards, including the Lambda Literary Award
. Although Sanchez's novels are widely accepted in thousands of school and public libraries in America, they have faced a handful of challenges and efforts to ban them. In Webster, New York, removal of Rainbow Boys
from the 2006 summer reading list was met by a counter-protest from students, parents, librarians, and community members resulting in the book being placed on the 2007 summer reading list.
in Provincetown, Massachusetts
, under Michael Cunningham
, Richard McCann
, Allan Gurganus
, Peter Ho Davies
, Michael Klein
, Elizabeth McCracken
, and Jacqueline Woodson
.
Sánchez’s works explore themes of love
, friendship
, family, coming of age
, and gay, bisexual, and questioning
youth
. His first novel, Rainbow Boys
(2001), was selected by the American Library Association
(ALA), as a “Best Book for Young Adults”. With the novel’s debut, Publishers Weekly
(PW) Magazine deemed Sanchez a “Flying Start”.
Two sequels, Rainbow High
(2003) and Rainbow Road
(2005), complete the Rainbow trilogy, portraying the coming of age of three gay and bisexual teenage boys. Both novels were honored as “Books for the Teen Age” by the New York Public Library
.
Sánchez’s novel So Hard to Say (2004), about a group of 13 year-olds, won the Lambda Literary Award
for Children's and Young Adult literature. Getting It
(2006) won the Myers Outstanding Book Award for Human Rights and also second place at the 2007 Latino Book Awards for Best Young Adult Fiction in English. The God Box
(2007), focuses on the conflict and friendship between two Christian teenage boys, one openly gay and the other struggling to accept his sexuality. Bait, about a teenage boy struggling with secrets from his past, won the 2009 Florida Book Award Gold Medal for YA fiction. A new novel, Boyfriends with Girlfriends, exploring bisexuality in teens, was released in April, 2011. In May 2011, the Lambda Literary Foundation
awarded Sanchez the Outstanding Mid-Career Novelists' Prize.
Additional works by Sánchez include his short story, “If You Kiss a Boy’, which appeared in the anthology 13: Thirteen Stories about the Agony and Ecstasy of Being Thirteen (2003), edited by James Howe.
Although Sanchez's novels are widely accepted in thousands of school and public libraries in the U.S. and Canada, they have faced a handful of challenges and efforts to ban them. Linda P. Harvey of Mission America in Columbus, Ohio
, targeted Rainbow Boys
in her 2002 essay “The World According to PFLAG: Why PFLAG and Children Don’t Mix Unless you happen to like child abuse” (sic). The book was also challenged by citizens in Owen, Wisconsin
in 2005, but ultimately retained by the Owen-Withee Junior and Senior High School, although the superintendent suggested creating a policy of requiring guardian permission to check out the book (ABFFE). In addition to the Wisconsin challenge, the book was also challenged at the Montgomery County Memorial Library System in Montgomery County, Texas
(Doyle 6). The ACLU of Texas also reports that Rainbow Boys was challenged in Texas during the 2004–2005 school year (ACLUTX 30). One of the most recent challenges occurred in 2006, when the Webster, New York Central School District removed Rainbow Boys from the summer reading list. After numerous protests from students, parents, librarians, and community members, the book was placed on the 2007 summer reading list. In Canada in 2008, the superintendent of Schools for Charlotte County, New Brunswick canceled plans for Sanchez to speak to students in the high schools "after a few parents objected." However, after hearing Sanchez speak at a presentation, he said he would recommend the gay author as a speaker. "Oh absolutely. Definitely. Now that I've heard him, he's wonderful. But I needed to hear that message."
Rainbow Boys
Rainbow Boys is the first novel in a trilogy by Alex Sánchez, focusing on the issues gay and questioning youth face as they come of age. This book is followed by Rainbow High and Rainbow Road.-Plot summary:...
(2001), was selected by the American Library Association
American Library Association
The American Library Association is a non-profit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with more than 62,000 members....
(ALA), as a “Best Book for Young Adults”. Subsequent books have won additional awards, including the Lambda Literary Award
Lambda Literary Award
Lambda Literary Awards are awarded yearly by the US-based Lambda Literary Foundation to published works which celebrate or explore LGBT themes. Categories include Humor, Romance and Biography. To qualify, a book must have been published in the United States in the year current to the award...
. Although Sanchez's novels are widely accepted in thousands of school and public libraries in America, they have faced a handful of challenges and efforts to ban them. In Webster, New York, removal of Rainbow Boys
Rainbow Boys
Rainbow Boys is the first novel in a trilogy by Alex Sánchez, focusing on the issues gay and questioning youth face as they come of age. This book is followed by Rainbow High and Rainbow Road.-Plot summary:...
from the 2006 summer reading list was met by a counter-protest from students, parents, librarians, and community members resulting in the book being placed on the 2007 summer reading list.
Life and career
Sanchez was born in 1957 in Mexico City, to parents of German and Cuban heritage, and emigrated to the United States in 1962. Sanchez studied writing at the Fine Arts Work CenterFine Arts Work Center
The Fine Arts Work Center is a non-profit enterprise devoted to encouraging the growth and development of emerging visual artists and writers through residency programs, to the propagation of aesthetic values and experience, and to the restoration of the year-round vitality of the historic art...
in Provincetown, Massachusetts
Provincetown, Massachusetts
Provincetown is a New England town located at the extreme tip of Cape Cod in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 3,431 at the 2000 census, with an estimated 2007 population of 3,174...
, under Michael Cunningham
Michael Cunningham
Michael Cunningham is an American writer, best known for his 1998 novel The Hours, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award in 1999.-Early life and education:...
, Richard McCann
Richard McCann
Richard McCann is a writer of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. He lives in Washington, D.C., where he is a long-time professor in the A gay writer, he is the author of , a collection of linked stories that novelist Michael Cunningham has described as unbearably beautiful. It won the 2005 from...
, Allan Gurganus
Allan Gurganus
Allan Gurganus is an American novelist, short story writer, and essayist whose work is often influenced by and set in his native North Carolina. His writing has been compared to the work of William Faulkner and Eudora Welty, who also were identified with the American South.-Biography: Gurganus was...
, Peter Ho Davies
Peter Ho Davies
Peter Ho Davies is a contemporary British writer of Welsh and Chinese descent.-Biography:Born and raised in Coventry, Davies studied physics at Manchester University then English at Cambridge University....
, Michael Klein
Michael Klein
Michael Klein is the name of:* Michael Klein , Romanian football player, played in Romania and at Bayer Uerdingen* Michael L...
, Elizabeth McCracken
Elizabeth McCracken
Elizabeth McCracken is an American author.McCracken, a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, graduated from Newton North High School in Newton, Massachusetts, earned a B.A. and M.A. in English from Boston University, an M.F.A. from the University of Iowa, and...
, and Jacqueline Woodson
Jacqueline Woodson
Jacqueline Woodson is an American author who writes books targeted at children and adolescents. She is best known for 'Miracle's Boys' which won the Coretta Scott King Award in 2001 and her Newbery Honor titles 'After Tupac & D Foster', 'Feathers' and 'Show Way'...
.
Sánchez’s works explore themes of love
Love
Love is an emotion of strong affection and personal attachment. In philosophical context, love is a virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion, and affection. Love is central to many religions, as in the Christian phrase, "God is love" or Agape in the Canonical gospels...
, friendship
Friendship
Friendship is a form of interpersonal relationship generally considered to be closer than association, although there is a range of degrees of intimacy in both friendships and associations. Friendship and association are often thought of as spanning across the same continuum...
, family, coming of age
Coming of age
Coming of age is a young person's transition from childhood to adulthood. The age at which this transition takes place varies in society, as does the nature of the transition. It can be a simple legal convention or can be part of a ritual, as practiced by many societies...
, and gay, bisexual, and questioning
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
youth
Youth
Youth is the time of life between childhood and adulthood . Definitions of the specific age range that constitutes youth vary. An individual's actual maturity may not correspond to their chronological age, as immature individuals could exist at all ages.-Usage:Around the world, the terms "youth",...
. His first novel, Rainbow Boys
Rainbow Boys
Rainbow Boys is the first novel in a trilogy by Alex Sánchez, focusing on the issues gay and questioning youth face as they come of age. This book is followed by Rainbow High and Rainbow Road.-Plot summary:...
(2001), was selected by the American Library Association
American Library Association
The American Library Association is a non-profit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with more than 62,000 members....
(ALA), as a “Best Book for Young Adults”. With the novel’s debut, Publishers Weekly
Publishers Weekly
Publishers Weekly, aka PW, is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers and literary agents...
(PW) Magazine deemed Sanchez a “Flying Start”.
Two sequels, Rainbow High
Rainbow High
Rainbow High is the second novel in a trilogy by Alex Sanchez, focusing on the issues gay and questioning youth face as they come of age. This book is the sequel to Rainbow Boys and followed by Rainbow Road.- Plot summary :...
(2003) and Rainbow Road
Rainbow Road (novel)
Rainbow Road is the third in a trilogy by Alex Sánchez; the first two books are Rainbow Boys and Rainbow High respectively. The three main characters, Nelson, Kyle, and Jason, are on a road trip told from the point of view from each one of them the summer after they graduate high school. It is...
(2005), complete the Rainbow trilogy, portraying the coming of age of three gay and bisexual teenage boys. Both novels were honored as “Books for the Teen Age” by the New York Public Library
New York Public Library
The New York Public Library is the largest public library in North America and is one of the United States' most significant research libraries...
.
Sánchez’s novel So Hard to Say (2004), about a group of 13 year-olds, won the Lambda Literary Award
Lambda Literary Award
Lambda Literary Awards are awarded yearly by the US-based Lambda Literary Foundation to published works which celebrate or explore LGBT themes. Categories include Humor, Romance and Biography. To qualify, a book must have been published in the United States in the year current to the award...
for Children's and Young Adult literature. Getting It
Getting It (novel)
Getting It is a novel by Alex Sanchez, focusing on the conflict and friendship between two teen boys, one straight and the other gay.-Plot summary:...
(2006) won the Myers Outstanding Book Award for Human Rights and also second place at the 2007 Latino Book Awards for Best Young Adult Fiction in English. The God Box
The God Box
The God Box , a novel by Alex Sanchez, focuses on the conflict and friendship between two Christian teenage boys, one openly gay and the other struggling to accept his sexuality.-External links:...
(2007), focuses on the conflict and friendship between two Christian teenage boys, one openly gay and the other struggling to accept his sexuality. Bait, about a teenage boy struggling with secrets from his past, won the 2009 Florida Book Award Gold Medal for YA fiction. A new novel, Boyfriends with Girlfriends, exploring bisexuality in teens, was released in April, 2011. In May 2011, the Lambda Literary Foundation
Lambda Literary Foundation
The Lambda Literary Foundation is the largest LGBT literary organization in the world. The foundation's mission is to nurture, celebrate, and preserve Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender literature through three programs that honor excellence, promote visibility and encourage development of...
awarded Sanchez the Outstanding Mid-Career Novelists' Prize.
Additional works by Sánchez include his short story, “If You Kiss a Boy’, which appeared in the anthology 13: Thirteen Stories about the Agony and Ecstasy of Being Thirteen (2003), edited by James Howe.
Although Sanchez's novels are widely accepted in thousands of school and public libraries in the U.S. and Canada, they have faced a handful of challenges and efforts to ban them. Linda P. Harvey of Mission America in Columbus, Ohio
Mission America (Columbus, Ohio)
Mission America, based in Columbus, Ohio, USA, is a Christian public policy and commentary organization founded by Linda Harvey.-Background:...
, targeted Rainbow Boys
Rainbow Boys
Rainbow Boys is the first novel in a trilogy by Alex Sánchez, focusing on the issues gay and questioning youth face as they come of age. This book is followed by Rainbow High and Rainbow Road.-Plot summary:...
in her 2002 essay “The World According to PFLAG: Why PFLAG and Children Don’t Mix Unless you happen to like child abuse” (sic). The book was also challenged by citizens in Owen, Wisconsin
Owen, Wisconsin
Owen is a city in Clark County in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. The population was 936 at the 2000 census, but was 982 as of 2008. Owen is located directly east of the village of Withee, which is about half the size of Owen.-Geography:...
in 2005, but ultimately retained by the Owen-Withee Junior and Senior High School, although the superintendent suggested creating a policy of requiring guardian permission to check out the book (ABFFE). In addition to the Wisconsin challenge, the book was also challenged at the Montgomery County Memorial Library System in Montgomery County, Texas
Montgomery County, Texas
Montgomery County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas within the Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown metropolitan area. The county was created by an act of the Congress of the Republic of Texas on December 14, 1837. The county was named for the town of Montgomery, Texas. In 2000, its...
(Doyle 6). The ACLU of Texas also reports that Rainbow Boys was challenged in Texas during the 2004–2005 school year (ACLUTX 30). One of the most recent challenges occurred in 2006, when the Webster, New York Central School District removed Rainbow Boys from the summer reading list. After numerous protests from students, parents, librarians, and community members, the book was placed on the 2007 summer reading list. In Canada in 2008, the superintendent of Schools for Charlotte County, New Brunswick canceled plans for Sanchez to speak to students in the high schools "after a few parents objected." However, after hearing Sanchez speak at a presentation, he said he would recommend the gay author as a speaker. "Oh absolutely. Definitely. Now that I've heard him, he's wonderful. But I needed to hear that message."
Works, Awards, and Achievements
- Rainbow BoysRainbow BoysRainbow Boys is the first novel in a trilogy by Alex Sánchez, focusing on the issues gay and questioning youth face as they come of age. This book is followed by Rainbow High and Rainbow Road.-Plot summary:...
(2001): American Library AssociationAmerican Library AssociationThe American Library Association is a non-profit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with more than 62,000 members....
2002 “Best Book for Young Adults,” International Reading AssociationInternational Reading AssociationThe International Reading Association is an international professional organization that was created in 1956 to improve reading instruction, facilitate dialogue about research on reading, and encourage the habit of reading....
2003 “Young Adults’ Choice,” New York Public LibraryNew York Public LibraryThe New York Public Library is the largest public library in North America and is one of the United States' most significant research libraries...
2002 “Book for the Teen Age,” Lambda Literary AwardLambda Literary AwardLambda Literary Awards are awarded yearly by the US-based Lambda Literary Foundation to published works which celebrate or explore LGBT themes. Categories include Humor, Romance and Biography. To qualify, a book must have been published in the United States in the year current to the award...
2001 Finalist, Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books “Blue Ribbon Winner,” Book-of-the-Month Club InsightOutBooks.com selection - Rainbow HighRainbow HighRainbow High is the second novel in a trilogy by Alex Sanchez, focusing on the issues gay and questioning youth face as they come of age. This book is the sequel to Rainbow Boys and followed by Rainbow Road.- Plot summary :...
(2003): Lambda Literary AwardLambda Literary AwardLambda Literary Awards are awarded yearly by the US-based Lambda Literary Foundation to published works which celebrate or explore LGBT themes. Categories include Humor, Romance and Biography. To qualify, a book must have been published in the United States in the year current to the award...
2003 Finalist, New York Public LibraryNew York Public LibraryThe New York Public Library is the largest public library in North America and is one of the United States' most significant research libraries...
2004 “Book for the Teen Age,” Children’s Book Council Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young People 2004, Book-of-the-Month Club InsightOutBooks.com Main Selection, Quality Paperback Book Club Featured Selection - '“If You Kiss a Boy”' (short story in the anthology, 13: Thirteen Stories About the Agony and Ecstasy of Being Thirteen, James Howe, Ed., 2003). Selected by the Junior Library Guild.
- So Hard to Say (2004): Lambda Literary AwardLambda Literary AwardLambda Literary Awards are awarded yearly by the US-based Lambda Literary Foundation to published works which celebrate or explore LGBT themes. Categories include Humor, Romance and Biography. To qualify, a book must have been published in the United States in the year current to the award...
2004 Winner; Rhode Island Teen Book Award Nominee; VOYA Top Shelf Fiction for Middle School Readers; Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC) Choice; Borders Bookstores "Original Voices: New and Emerging Writers" selection, Book-of-the-Month Club InsightOutBooks.com Featured Selection, Mi Zona Hispana selection, New York Public LibraryNew York Public LibraryThe New York Public Library is the largest public library in North America and is one of the United States' most significant research libraries...
2005 “Book for the Teen Age,” Quill Award 2005 Nominee - Rainbow RoadRainbow Road (novel)Rainbow Road is the third in a trilogy by Alex Sánchez; the first two books are Rainbow Boys and Rainbow High respectively. The three main characters, Nelson, Kyle, and Jason, are on a road trip told from the point of view from each one of them the summer after they graduate high school. It is...
(2005): Lambda Literary AwardLambda Literary AwardLambda Literary Awards are awarded yearly by the US-based Lambda Literary Foundation to published works which celebrate or explore LGBT themes. Categories include Humor, Romance and Biography. To qualify, a book must have been published in the United States in the year current to the award...
2005 Finalist; New York Public LibraryNew York Public LibraryThe New York Public Library is the largest public library in North America and is one of the United States' most significant research libraries...
2006 “Book for the Teen Age;” 2009 ALAAlaAla may refer to:* Ala , a female demon in the Serbian and Bulgarian mythology* Ala , an Alusi in Odinani* Ala , a Republican-period, largely infantry, formation of 5,400 men...
"Popular Paperback for Young Adults;" Book-of-the-Month Club InsightOutBooks.com Featured Selection - Getting ItGetting It (novel)Getting It is a novel by Alex Sanchez, focusing on the conflict and friendship between two teen boys, one straight and the other gay.-Plot summary:...
(2006): Myers Outstanding Book Award 2007 Winner; 9th International Latino Book Awards 2nd place Best Young Adult Fiction – English; New York Public LibraryNew York Public LibraryThe New York Public Library is the largest public library in North America and is one of the United States' most significant research libraries...
2007 “Book for the Teen Age;” Book-of-the-Month Club InsightOutBooks.com Featured Selection - The God BoxThe God BoxThe God Box , a novel by Alex Sanchez, focuses on the conflict and friendship between two Christian teenage boys, one openly gay and the other struggling to accept his sexuality.-External links:...
(2007): New York Public LibraryNew York Public LibraryThe New York Public Library is the largest public library in North America and is one of the United States' most significant research libraries...
2008 “Book for the Teen Age” - Bait (2009): Florida Book Award Gold Medal for Young Adult Fiction
- Boyfriends with Girlfriends (2011)