{"id":578,"date":"2011-07-19T16:10:20","date_gmt":"2011-07-19T21:10:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/?p=578"},"modified":"2011-09-19T11:49:48","modified_gmt":"2011-09-19T16:49:48","slug":"it-gets-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/it-gets-better\/","title":{"rendered":"It Gets Better"},"content":{"rendered":"

Savage, Dan, and Terry Miller, eds. It Gets Better: Coming Out, Overcoming Bullying, and Creating a Life Worth Living.<\/em> New York: Dutton-Penguin, 2011. Hardcover. 338pp. $21.95. ISBN: 978-0-525-95233-6.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"A companion to the popular video project<\/a>, this book presents first-person accounts by adults assuring GLBTQ youth that, despite the challenges of being young and gay, life gets better.<\/p>\n

The It Gets Better Project was initiated last year by sex columnist, Dan Savage and his partner, Terry Miller, in response to a string of highly publicized suicides by gay teens. As they explain in the introduction, Savage and Miller wanted to provide bullied youth access to the stories of happy, well-adjusted gay adults. So they created a YouTube channel, posted a video, and encouraged others to submit their own. Thousands of videos later, this book collects transcripts of some of the best from YouTube, as well as new pieces. Like the video project, the book\u2019s success springs from the variety of voices represented, both famous and unknown. A sample of the writers includes a group of orthodox Jews, Broadway actors, an African-American minister, and a self-proclaimed \u201cbig rural dyke.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though some of the stories suffer without their original video, none are longer than a few pages, allowing for easy browsing. The extensive discussion of bullying occasionally includes slurs and harsh language. There is also some mention of sex and kink, but nothing explicit.<\/p>\n

In addition to the narratives, the book is rich with resources for youth, parents, and teachers. The book and video project \u2014 now housed at www.itgetsbetter.org<\/a> \u2014 present many opportunities for programming and teaching. Given the project\u2019s wide success and interest, this is a must for all public libraries and high school libraries.<\/p>\n

Reviewed by, Kelly McElroy<\/strong><\/em>
\nUndergraduate Services Librarian<\/em>
\nUniversity of Iowa Libraries<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Savage, Dan, and Terry Miller, eds. It Gets Better: Coming Out, Overcoming Bullying, and Creating a Life Worth Living. New York: Dutton-Penguin, 2011. Hardcover. 338pp. $21.95. ISBN: 978-0-525-95233-6. A companion to the popular video project, this book presents first-person accounts by adults assuring GLBTQ youth that, despite the challenges of being young and gay, life […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1167,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[27,32,21],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1167"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}