When I was little, my dad used to tell me, “Will, you can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose, but you can’t pick your friend’s nose.” This seemed like a reasonably astute observation to me when I was eight, but it turns out to be incorrect on a few levels.  To begin with, you cannot possibly pick your friends, or else I never would have ended up with Tiny Cooper.

These are the opening words of Will Grayson, Will Grayson, which is co-authored by John Green and David Levithan.  I love to read when I travel, and I picked it up before heading to the Literacy Research Association conference in December.  Let me say this: it’s the kind of book that can make you laugh out loud on a crowded plane.  But it’s also filled with teenage angst, awkwardness, and heartache.  In short, it’s a great mix of everything.

I loved David Levithan’s first novel, Boy Meets Boy, and I’ve used it in class before.  Many of his books are love stories, and it looks like his latest, The Lover’s Dictionary, is no exception.  Every day for the past 23 years, Levithan has written a story for his friends for Valentine’s Day.  John Green is also a well-known young adult author and his work includes Looking for Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines, and Paper Towns.  I read Paper Towns last year.  While the characters and their pranks are over-the-top, I was drawn into the compelling storyline.  Green is also one half of the Vlogbrothers and founder of Nerdfighters.  I purchased Will Grayson in a local bookstore, and a couple of pages in, I found a handwritten note from a local fan.  It thanked me for buying the book and proclaimed, “Don’t forget to be awesome!”  Here’s a Nerdfighters FAQ:

Will Grayson, Will Grayson tells the story of two Will Graysons who live in the Chicago area.  Other than their name, they don’t have much in common.  They meet by chance in a porn shop (which is not as bad as it sounds).  Neither of them really meant to be there, they’re both a bit heartbroken, and admittedly freaked out to meet someone with the same name.  But soon Will is introduced to O.W.G.’s (Other Will Grayson’s) best friend, Tiny Cooper.  As O.W.G. explains, “Tiny Cooper is not the world’s gayest person, and he is not the world’s largest person, but I believe that he may be the world’s largest person who is really, really gay, and also the world’s gayest person who is really, really large.”

Tiny Cooper is a central figure in the story – so much so that the book could have easily been titled Will Grayson, Will Grayson, and Tiny Cooper.  Levithan and Green each write in the voice of a different Will Grayson, and the chapters alternate this first-person narration.  Some of my middle school and high school students used to struggled with books written with multiple narrators, but each Will has a very unique voice and perspective so I don’t think that would be an issue here.  I think that this would be a great addition to any high school teacher’s classroom library, and I can see it be incorporated into literature circles that focus on friendship or relationships.

Over on his blog, John Green talks about his experience with co-authoring a book.  Consequently, I think Will Grayson might be a wonderful example of collaborative writing that teachers could use in their curriculum, perhaps in conjunction with tools like Bubbl.us, Google Docs, or MixedInk.  To open it up to more collaborators and readers, look to Novlet or Protagonize.

Image Credit: John Green

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