By the Book: Kean Unites for Common Read of ‘All Boys Aren’t Blue’
Copies of "All Boys Aren't Blue," the Common Read selection, were distributed at Freshman Orientation.
Kean University students are building community and sharing an intellectual experience through the University’s second annual Common Read, in which students are invited to read the same book.
While primarily focused on first-year students, all Kean faculty and students are welcome to read All Boys Aren’t Blue, a “memoir-manifesto” by LGBTQIA+ activist George M. Johnson, and attend the author book reading and other events.
“We are proud to continue the Common Read as part of our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion throughout the Kean community,” said Kean President Lamont O. Repollet, Ed.D. “This shared reading experience offers diverse voices and viewpoints and literally puts Kean students and faculty ‘on the same page’ in a shared experience that informs and enlightens us.”
All Boys Aren’t Blue covers topics such as gender identity, toxic masculinity, brotherhood and family through a collection of narrative essays. “This book is an exploration of two of my identities – Black and queer – and how I became aware of their intersections within myself and society,” Johnson writes in the book’s introduction.
The author will be on campus Tuesday, October 11, on National Coming Out Day, for a book reading. The event takes place at Wilkins Theatre at 3:30 p.m.
More than 650 copies of the book were distributed to Kean freshmen on Opening Day. Students in the Women’s and Gender Studies program, upper level composition and research courses and other students are also reading it, said Abriana Jetté, Ph.D., a lecturer in the Kean English Department and coordinator of the Common Read.
“The Common Read program asks students, faculty and staff across the campus community to engage with the same book as a way of emphasizing the importance of reading in higher education,” she said. “The program promotes the value of shared intellectual and creative experiences and cultivates a welcoming campus culture.”
The Common Read organizers selected the book through a multi-step process involving a Google survey of faculty, staff and students; a list of 200 suggestions winnowed to a “Top Five”; and a final vote.
“One single person is not in charge of picking a book: it’s a communal effort,” Jetté said.
All Boys Aren’t Blue was published in 2020 and became a New York Times bestseller. In 2021, the American Library Association's Office of Intellectual Freedom named it the third most banned and challenged book of the year in the U.S. because it includes profanity and LGBTQIA+ and sexually explicit content.
Jetté said because of its banned status, “There’s certainly a lot more press surrounding the book, which we find exciting.
“People want to know: why is it banned? So that gets them reading,” she said. “Whether or not the book is banned, we find Johnson’s narrative worthy of discussion.”
Some Kean students have already read the book. In a survey of freshmen who read it in summer classes, students said it helped them understand individuality and that “everyone should be accepted no matter what.”
“It made me see the world in a new light. How people should be treated,” one student wrote.
Kean’s Common Read was organized by the School of English Studies; Human Rights Institute; Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion; College of Liberal Arts; and General Studies.
In addition to the author visit, a faculty roundtable talk, The Medical Ethics of Sexuality, is being planned for Tuesday, October 4. Also, two non-alcoholic “paint and sip” events are scheduled — Thursday, September 15 from 3:30-4:30 p.m., and Friday, October 14 from 6-7:30 p.m. — both in person at Vaughn-Eames Hall and online.
There will also be Common Read Awards, with monetary prizes, given next spring for research or creative work on the theme of the book. Support for the prizes comes from the Judith F. Krug Memorial Fund Banned Books Week.