Geography Club

Russel Middlebrook is convinced he's the only gay kid at Goodkind High School. Then his online gay chat buddy turns out to be none other than Kevin, the popular but closeted star of the school's baseball team. Soon Russel meets other gay students, too. There's his best friend Min, who reveals that she is bisexual, and her soccer-playing girlfriend Terese. Then there's Terese's politically active friend, Ike. But how can kids this diverse get together without drawing attention to themselves?

"We just choose a club that's so boring, that nobody in their right mind would ever in a million years join it. We could call it Geography Club!"

Brent Hartinger's debut novel, what became first of a series about Russel Middlebrook, is a fast-paced, funny, and trenchant portrait of contemporary teenagers who may not learn any actual geography in their latest club, but who learn plenty about the treacherous social terrain of high school and the even more dangerous landscape of the human heart. This is Book 1 in the Russel Middlebrook Series.

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Geography Club

"We just choose a club that's so boring, that nobody in their right mind would ever in a million years join it. We could call it Geography Club!"

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Overview

"We just choose a club that's so boring, that nobody in their right mind would ever in a million years join it. We could call it Geography Club!"

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781531808327
Publisher:	Mandy Starr
Publication date:	08/28/2016
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 6.70(h) x 0.50(d)
Age Range:	14 - 17 Years

About the Author

Brent Hartinger has been a full-time author for many years, writing novels, plays, and screenplays. He lives in Washington State. Among his books are Geography Club and its sequel, The Order of the Poison Oak, as well as The Last Chance Texaco and Split Screen. Like Dave and his friends, as a teenager he resisted getting a job for as long as possible but finally was forced by his parents to go to work as a lifeguard at age sixteen. He still smells like coconut sunblock.

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Geography Club EPB

Chapter One

I was deep behind enemy lines, in the very heart of the opposing camp. My adversaries were all around me. For the time being, my disguise was holding, but still I felt exposed, naked, as if my secret was obvious to anyone who took the time to look. I knew that any wrong action, however slight, could expose my deception and reveal my true identity. The thought made my skin prickle. The enemy would not take kindly to my infiltration of their ranks, especially not here, in their inner sanctum.

Then Kevin Land leaned over the wooden bench behind my locker and said, "Yo, Middlebrook, let me use your shampoo!"

I was in the high school boys' locker room at the end of third period P.E. class. I'd just come from the showers, and part of the reason I felt naked was because I was naked. I'd slung my wet towel over the metal door of my locker and was standing there all goosebumpy, eager to get dressed and get the hell out of there. Why exactly did I feel like the boys' locker room after third period P.E. was enemy territory — that the other guys in my class were rival soldiers in some warlike struggle for domination? Well, there's not really a short answer to that question.

"Use your own damn shampoo," I said to Kevin, crouching down in front of my locker, probing the darkness for clean underwear.

Kevin stepped right up next to me and started searching the upper reaches of my locker himself. I could feel the heat of his body, but it did nothing to lessen my goosebumps. "Come on," he said. "Where is it? I know you have some. You always have shampoo, just like you always have clean undies."

I had justfound my Jockey shorts, and I was tempted to not give Kevin the satisfaction of seeing he'd been right about me, but I was cold and tired of being exposed. I sat down on the bench, maneuvering my legs through the elastic of my underwear, then pulled them up. I fumbled for the shampoo in my backpack and handed it to Kevin. "Here," I said. "Just bring it back when you're done." Kevin was lean and muscled and dark, with perfect sideburns and a five o'clock shadow by ten in the morning. More important, he was naked too, and suddenly it seemed like there was no place to look in the entire locker room that wasn't his crotch. I glanced away, but there were more visual land mines to avoid — specifically, the bodies of Leon and Brad and Jarred and Ramone, other guys from our P.E. class, all looking like one of those Abercrombie & Fitch underwear ads come to life.

Okay, maybe there was a short answer to the question of why I felt out of place in the boys' locker room. I liked guys. Seeing them naked, I mean. But — and this is worth emphasizing — I liked seeing them naked on the Internet; I had absolutely no interest in seeing them naked, in person, in the boys' locker room after third period P.E. I'd never been naked with a guy — I mean in a sexual way — and I had no plans to do it anytime soon. But the fact that I even thought about getting naked with a guy in a sexual way was something that Kevin and Leon and Brad and Jarred and Ramone would never ever understand. I wasn't the most popular guy at Robert L. Goodkind High School, but I wasn't the least popular either. (Kevin Land at least spoke to me, even if it was only to ask for shampoo.) But one sure way to become the least popular guy was to have people think you might be gay. And not being gay wasn't just about not throwing a bone in the showers. It was a whole way of acting around other guys, a level of casualness, of comfort, that says, "I'm one of you. I fit in." I wasn't one of them, I didn't fit in, but they didn't need to know that.

Kevin snatched the shampoo, and I deliberately turned my back to him, stepping awkwardly into my jeans.

"Hey, Middlebrook!" Kevin said to me. "Nice ass!" Leon and Brad and Jarred and Ramone all laughed. Big joke, not exactly at my expense, but in my general vicinity. Some tiny part of me wondered, Do I have a nice ass? Hell, I didn't know. But a much bigger part of me tensed, because I knew this was a test, the kind enemy soldiers in movies give to the hero who they suspect isn't one of them. And from a guy I'd just lent my shampoo to, besides. So much for gratitude.

Everything now depended on my reaction. Would I pass this, Kevin Land's latest test of my manhood?

I glanced back at Kevin, who was still snickering. Halfway down his body, he jiggled, but of course I didn't look.

Instead, I bent over halfway, sticking my rear out in his direction. "You really think so?" I said, squirming back and forth.

"Middlebrook!" Kevin said, all teeth and whiskers and dimples. "You are such a fag!"Mission accomplished, I thought. My cover was holding — for another day at least.

Once I'd finished dressing, I met up with my friends Gunnar and Min for lunch at our usual table in the school cafeteria.

"The paint is flaking off the ceiling in Mr. Wick's classroom," Gunnar said as we started to eat. "Sometimes the chips land on my desk." Gunnar and I had been friends forever, or at least since the fourth grade, when his family had moved from Norway to my neighborhood. I'd always thought he should be proud of being from somewhere different, but kids had teased him about his accent and his name (they called him "Goony" or "Gunner"), so he desperately tried to ignore his heritage. Gunnar was a thoroughly nice guy and perfectly loyal as a friend, but — and this is hard to admit, him being a buddy and all — just a little bit high-strung.

Reading Group Guide

Synopsis

Russel Middlebrook is convinced he's the only gay kid at Robert L. Goodkind High School. Then his online gay-chat buddy turns out to be none other than Kevin, the popular but closeted star of the school's baseball team. Soon Russel meets other gay students too. There's his best friend, Min, who reveals she's bisexual; Min's soccer-playing girlfriend, Terese; and Terese's politically active friend, Ike.

But how can kids this diverse get together without drawing attention to themselves? "We just choose a club that's so boring nobody in their right mind would ever in a million years join it. We could call in the Geography Club!"

Geography Club is for anyone, gay or straight, who's ever felt like an outsider -- a fast-paced and funny tale of teenagers who may not learn any actual geography in their latest club, but who discover plenty about the treacherous social terrain of high school, and the even more dangerous landscape of the human heart.

Major Themes and Ideas

Bullying can come in many forms, and can even exist between friends.

Superficial differences sometimes mask underlying similarities; people are not always what they appear.

Forgiveness is an essential part of friendship.

Being a fully mature, ethical person sometimes means putting the concerns of other people ahead of oneself.

Discussion Questions

At the beginning of the book, Russel feels different from everyone else in his school. Is he really that different? Is what ways is he the same? Some critics have called Russel an "everyboy" and a "universal character"? How can a character who feels "different" also be called "universal"?

The Geography Club never discusses actual geography, but the members do learn about a geography of sorts. What do they learn? Why does Russel compare the locker room to a battle zone, and why does he think of the school's various cliques and social groups as "countries"? Is that an accurate description of a high school campus?

Adults almost never appear in the book. Why do you think the author chose to do this? In what areas are adults an important part of your life? In way areas are adults not an important part?

In the book, bullying takes many forms. Give examples. Can a friend bully a friend? What about sexual partners? What is bullying anyway? Is a person who claims he or she is being harassed always right?

When Russel is trying to decide whether to forgive Gunnar, he remembers how Min had forgiven him, and he thinks, "It was funny how everything was fitting together like this." In what ways do the different characters in the book reverse roles? Was Min right to forgive Russel? Was Russel right to forgive Gunnar? Kevin?

Through the course of the book, Russel experiences life as a not-so-popular kid (in the "Borderlands of Respectability"); an extremely popular kid ("the Land of the Popular"); and a total loser ("Outcast Island"). Why do you think the author had Russel see life from all those points-of-view? Have you ever experienced a shift in popularity?

In the end, Russel and Min decide to break up with Kevin and Terese. Did they both make the right choice? Could their relationships have worked out if they'd stayed together? How were the two relationships the same? How were they different? Is Kevin a bad person? Is Terese a bad person?

Several times in the book, Russel compares Brian Bund to Jesus Christ. What point is he trying to make? What role does Brian play in the book, and in the school?

These days, some high schools are very accepting of openly gay students, other less so. What was/is your high school like in this respect? If a school is accepting of gay students, does that make the book less relevant?

Suggested Class Projects

Have students make a map or globe of the "countries" (i.e. cliques) at their own school. Which "countries" are the largest, and why? If they were real countries, which would be the largest? The most powerful?

Hold a "United Nations" meeting, where the different "countries" (i.e. cliques) at your school have a session. Have the "ambassadors" to the countries list their major grievances, and have other "ambassadors" respond. End with a discussion of the ways in which the "countries" share common ground. (For an interesting twist, require all students to represent a clique other than the one they're actually in.)

Have the class brainstorm to come up with all the words that people use to harass or bully other people. Use a poster or blackboard to list them all. Talk about the ways in which a person might feel being called these names. Encourage students to be creative in words that could be used to bully.

From the B&N Reads Blog

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Editorial Reviews

"In the age of chat rooms and instant messaging, is life easier for gay youth, at least in a coming-of-age novel? Russel Middlebrook, the teen protagonist of Geography Club, does find a queer classmate to commiserate with online, but his share of tumoil begins when he steps out of the real-world closet. While Geography's story line is familiar, first-time novelist Brent Hartinger tells the story imaginatively by documenting the beginnings of a gay-straight alliance--under the guise of a geography club--and the impact the group has on Russel and his fellow students at Goodkind High. Hartinger's novel is geared toward youth but should also speak volumes to youth allies."

Out Magazine

"Pitch-perfect...This is the most artful and authentic depiction of a gay teen since M.E. Kerr's groundbreaking Charlie Gilhooly in I'll Love You When You're More Like Me."

Horn Book

"Russel Middlebrook is a sophomore at Goodkind High School. He has a secret crush on a baseball jock, Kevin Land, and soon discovers that Kevin is also gay. The boys become friendly outside of school and set up the "Geography Club" with three other gay students, one of whom is Russel's closest friend, Min. The club members relish the opportunity to discuss their lives and to relate to one another openly and honestly. Eventually, however, intense peer pressure and insecurity take their toll. [....] Hartinger has written a compelling look at the high school scene and the serious consequences of being "different." The plot never falters. Dialogue flows smoothly and is always completely believable, and the occasional use of profanity adds to the realism of the story. Characterization is excellent, with all of the teens emerging as likable but flawed individuals caught in a situation that few young adults could handle with maturity. This author has something to say here, and his message is potent and effective in its delivery. Many teens, both gay and straight, should find this novel intriguing."

School Library Journal

Gay high school students form a small support group called the Geography Club. According to PW, "Overall, this novel does a fine job of presenting many of the complex realities of gay teen life, and also what it takes to be a `thoroughly decent' person." Ages 13-up. (Mar.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Robert L. Goodkind High School could be any small high school in any small town in America today. Even though it is a small town, there is a diverse group of students under the conformist façade. In the lunchroom everyone sticks to their cliques, the jocks, the smart kids, the political kids, and the "losers." Russel Middlebrook is an average teen at Goodkind; he's not super popular, not a loser, just average, but he does have a secret. He is gay, and no one, not even his best friends, know. Russel often searches online for other gay teens that he can talk to until one night when, to his surprise, he connects with a classmate in a chat room and they agree to meet. Russel discovers that he's not the only gay kid at Goodkind, and things begin to happen pretty quickly. Russel and his newly discovered gay (and bisexual) friends decide to start up a club where they can meet and talk about their lives, but they don't want anyone else at school to notice them as a gay club, so they decide to call themselves the Geography Club. This book is an eye-opening look into the life of a gay teen, and the difficulty of figuring out teen and gay identities simultaneously. This book does a great job of pointing out that gay teenagers are just like everyone else; they are the smart kids, the jocks, and the political activists. Most importantly, they go through the same identity crisis that all teens do. 2003, Harper Tempest, 226 pp., Ages young adult.
—Maria Hernandez

Russel goes to school in a small town. Russel is gay. While surfing the Internet, he enters a gay chatroom for his hometown and meets a boy from school. One thing leads to another, and they meet in person. The boy turns out to be Kevin Land, star athlete. Russel tells his friend Min. She laughs and reveals that she is bisexual and has been in a lesbian relationship for some time. They form a gay-lesbian-bisexual support group in school with some other students. Knowing that calling it a gay club would be risky, they pick the most boring name they can find-the Geography Club. In the interim, much to Russel's chagrin, Russel's best friend, Gunnar, keeps hounding him to go out with a girl so that her friend will go out with Gunnar. When a rumor spreads that there is a gay student in the small school, Russel worries. Brian Bund, the butt of jokes and torments, however, takes the heat although he is straight. And so it goes. Hartinger grasps the melodrama and teen angst of high school well. Russel's narration rings true, as he walks through the social jungle that is high school. The main characters ultimately come off as rather shallow-accurately reflecting the surface of high school dynamics. Brian Bund seems to be the only truly sympathetic, noble character. Russel's first forays into romance do not read too differently from traditional love stories. Frank language and the intimation of sexual activity might put off some readers. VOYA Codes: 4Q 3P S (Better than most, marred only by occasional lapses; Will appeal with pushing; Senior High, defined as grades 10 to 12). 2003, HarperTempest, 226p,
— Mike Brown <%ISBN%>0060012218

VOYA

Much to his surprise (and relief), a closeted gay boy in high school discovers that he isn't the only homosexual teenager in his community. Russel Middlebrook, a sophomore at Goodkind High School, has a secret. Although he hasn't had physical sex yet, he knows in his heart that he's gay. News like that is tantamount to dynamite; socially it could blow him out of the "border region of high school respectability" he inhabits and into the land of the ostracized and set upon. Then Russel finds out that classmate Kevin Land, a handsome and popular star athlete, is a clandestine homosexual too. In a necessary but not very plausible plot twist, Russel confesses to his close female friend Min, who in turn admits to having a girlfriend. The teens desperately need to talk about their shared situation, so in an effort to find a safe haven and discourage other kids from coming around, they create the dullest after-school organization they can think of, the Geography Club. The group survives the addition of a straight girl with another kind of secret and Kevin and Russel's growing attachment, but its undoing comes when Min, knowing that they are only a whisper away from social ostracism themselves, fights to have Brian Bund, the "unquestioned outcast" of Goodkind, join their organization. Hartinger has to jiggle the plot to make it work, Russel's adventures in heterosexual dating feel forced and the conclusion strains credibility, yet overall the book is provocative, insightful, and in the end comforting. (Fiction. 12+)

Kirkus Reviews

Lively and compelling... there’s heart-palpitating romance... and there’s plenty of humor in the witty writing.

Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

Pitch-perfect. Artful and authentic.

Horn Book Magazine

Lively and compelling... there's heart-palpitating romance... and there's plenty of humor in the witty writing.

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

Lively and compelling... there’s heart-palpitating romance... and there’s plenty of humor in the witty writing.

The Bulletin for the Center for Children's Books

Lively and compelling... there’s heart-palpitating romance... and there’s plenty of humor in the witty writing.

Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

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Overview

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About the Author

Read an Excerpt

Reading Group Guide

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