Annie on My Mind

Garden, N. (1982). Annie on My Mind. New York, NY: Farrar Straus Giroux.

This is story about two young women who fell in love, Lisa Winthrop and Annie Kenyon.  Lisa is a student at a private school, Foster Academy,  and serves as  the student council president. She also loves architecture and wants to become an architect.  Annie attends public school in a rougher part of town, who loves music and singing.  The young women meet one day at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and become friends instantly.  As they spend more time with one another, they become more than just friends.  They begin to fall in love with one another.  At Christmas time, they give each other rings and declare their love for one another.  They keep their love a secret from their family and friends, and even are hesitant to be intimate with one another out of shyness.  Then during spring break, Lisa agrees to watch her teacher's cats, Ms. Widmer and Ms. Stevenson, who both work at Foster Academy and live together.   The house gives Lisa and Annie a place to be alone together.  The two girls begin to spend the days there together during spring break and have their first intimate encounter with one another.  While they are in the house, they discover that Ms. Widmer and Ms. Stevenson are more than just roommates, they are a gay couple. Towards the end of the break, Lisa forgets to go to a student council meeting.  They are caught together by a classmate and the school secretary, Ms. Baxter in an awkward situation.  At the same time, Ms. Widmer and Ms. Stevenson arrive home.  The girls have been caught and must face consequences.  Lisa is confronted in an expulsion trial with her parents because of the situation.  She is found not guilty and can continue attending Foster Academy.  However, the two teachers, Ms. Widmer and Ms. Stevenson are fired because they are considered bad influences on students.  The girls then go off to separate colleges, but at the last chapter, Lisa calls Annie and declares her love for her again and they plan to see each other at Christmas break. 

Who is to say what love is and is not?  Many people assume because a couple is gay, they may not have the same feelings as a heterosexual couple does.  This book shares the deep love the girls have for one another, and that many gay couples have for each other.   This book may give teens who are in a similar situation a connection and reassurance that their feelings are true and that it's ok to love another person of the same sex.  When the author wrote this book in the early eighties, there were not many books written about gay teens in love.  This was a controversial book when it came out and was censored and even burned in Kansas. 

This book also explores not just a love story, but the way some people view gay couples.  In this book, we see the hatred others have for gay couples.   In this story, the gay teachers are viewed as immoral and even lose their jobs as teachers.  Lisa also faces a school trial due to her involvement with Annie.   In this day and age, that would be considered discrimination and a violation of rights.   The rights of gay people have come a long way since the eighties, and now same sex marriages are even legal and they have the same rights as heterosexual couples.  A teachable idea could be how laws have changed for gay couples.