Sprout is a young adult gay novel by American author Dale Peck first published in May 2009. The novel depicts an openly gay teenage boy who moves to Kansas after his mother dies from cancer. While he struggles with harassment at school and two potential boyfriends, he has to decide if he will hide his sexual orientation in order to win a statewide essay-writing contest. An act of betrayal leads to the book's climax. The book won the Lambda Literary Award for LGBT Children's/Young Adult literature, and was a finalist for the Stonewall Book Award in the Children's and Young Adult Literature category. Booklist added the novel to its Rainbow List 2010, a bibliography of young adult books which include significant LGBT content.Peck says he based some characters and plot in the book on his own experiences growing up on Long Island, in New York, and in Kansas. Source: Wikipedia (en)