Am I Blue?

In Bruce Coville's short story, "Am I Blue?" is about a boy named Vincent who is having a hard time thinking about his identity.  In the story, Vince is struggling with the concept of him being gay or not.  When the story starts, Vince is getting beat up by a boy in his grade named Butch Carrigan.  While Vince is sitting there after getting beat up, he meets a "fairy godmother", Melvin.  Melvin is there to help him along in his struggles.  While at a cafe with Melvin, Melvin gives him special vision so he can see if someone is gay.  The way  he can do this is if they are blue or not.  If they are blue, it means they are gay.  While using the vision, Vince sees that so many more people are gay then he could ever think of, even people that are strongly against homosexuality.

Acceptance is a main theme in the story.  Many people in this story have to learn to accept others as well as themselves.  For example, Vince has to learn to accept himself.  In the beginning, he was really scared of the fact that he might be gay. He is really defensive of himself.  This is shown when he says, "Are you making fun of me?" to Melvin.  He was really paranoid of people being judgmental of him.  He is still sort of judgmental of gay people, and of being gay.  But, as the story progresses, he becomes accepting of whomever he may be.  This is shown when in the last paragraph Vincent says, "Maybe when I meet the girl of my dreams.  Or Prince Charming.  Whichever."  This shows that he is accepting himself and is open to whoever he may be or become.

"Am I Blue?", the short story, shows us many important things.  A major lesson is being accepting of people.  The lesson in the story reaches out everywhere, to anything, not just in terms of being gay.  It is important to accept people for who they are, not judging based on anything.  If you don't accept people, they will be afraid to be themselves.  What this story taught me is that you have to accept people no matter what.