Wade Rouse might have grown up in the heart of America in the tiny town of Granby, Missouri, but that didn’t make him the All-American Boy.  At three he crowned himself “Miss Sugar Creek” complete with tiara and scepter; at eight he kissed an older boy; at thirteen he was spraying Sun-In in his hair; there was no doubt about it, Wade was different.  Being different in Granby (“a town where trailers outnumber homes and teeth”) could have been nightmarish, but fortunately Wade had loving, if slightly wacky parents, a typical love/hate relationship with big brother Todd, and delightful, doting grandparents.  Wonderful summers spent at the family’s Sugar Creek cabin in the Missouri Ozarks also helped sustain him.  But a family tragedy at the cabin over the Fourth of July holiday would prematurely end Wade’s childhood and force him to bury his differentness -- his sexuality -- within him.  At times laugh-out-loud funny, at times heartbreakingly sad, America’s Boy is a coming of age memoir that’s hard to forget.