The reality is, young people at secondary school do swear, they do talk about sexual things with their friends. It’s a rollercoaster for everybody, and it doesn’t matter how you identify.”Īlongside the overt hostility to his books’ content, Green points out, are the more insidious complaints about swearing or sexual content: “It’s the ‘Won’t someone think of the children?’ mentality a convenient excuse for homophobia. “That whole process of fancying someone for the first time and falling in love. Those things sadly do happen, but it’s not the only story.”Īll students benefit from recognising that, ultimately, “we’re all going through exactly the same thing”, he argues.
You can watch certain media and get the impression that they always end up dead at the end of the story, there’s homophobic attacks and it’s all misery. “All I ever set out to do was show kids – particularly LGBT+ kids – that it’s not all doom and gloom. Since Green’s 2017 debut, Noah Can’t Even – still the “most stolen” book from school libraries, he is reliably informed – his formula of madcap humour, Technicolor characters and soap-opera plotting has redrafted LGBT+ kids “as the heroes, having a happy ending”. The banning was a brutal experience, he concedes, and “heartbreaking because it completely misrepresents what I’m trying to achieve in the books”. ‘The banning was heartbreaking because it completely misrepresents what I’m trying to achieve in the books’.
#OLD AND YOUNG GAY SEX PARTIES STORIES FREE#
It’s a refreshingly simple ethic: “They recognise that people should be who they are and be free to live their lives and love who they love.” He contrasts the maturity with which today’s teenagers discuss gender and sexuality with his own coming-of-age in a rural town in Lincolnshire “where ‘gay’ wasn’t even used as a slur – I grew up in total ignorance of LGBT+ people, partly because of section 28.
“They are passionate about building a world that is better, and they’re not going to stop,” he says. Barney’s activist passion is a thoroughly accurate reflection of the young people Green meets on a weekly basis, he explains.
Less widely reported were the cards and letters Green received from young people across the country who wanted to support the students who had been denied their opportunity to talk about his books. The cancellation of Green’s school event in March by the Catholic archdiocese of Southwark prompted a wave of outrage from authors, parents and teaching unions, as well as warnings about a growing censorship of writing about diversity for younger readers.