by Lara Neel, Trade Marketing Manager
June is celebrated as Pride Month by the LGBTQIA+ community, and many Pride events occur on the last Sunday in June to commemorate the anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion in New York City on June 28, 1969.
To help get ready, we’ve put together a list of books that include characters and nonfiction accounts of people along the LGBTQIA+ spectrum.
A note on the image we’ve used above. From pride.com – “This new flag seeks to take Philadelphia’s inclusive approach a step further. Daniel Quasar, who identifies as queer and nonbinary, designed this flag. The white, pink, and light blue reflect the colors of the transgender flag, while the brown and black stripes represent people of color and those lost to AIDS. “When the Pride flag was recreated in the last year to include both black/brown stripes as well as the trans stripes included this year, I wanted to see if there could be more emphasis in the design of the flag to give it more meaning,” Quasar explained.”
Parents Like Mine
Available to pre-order now! This title will publish on 8/1/2020.
Interest Level: Kindergarten – Grade 3
A child’s parents can be a mom and dad, dad and dad, single parents, stepparents, and more. Explore the many ways that different parents care for their children.
Families Like Mine
Available to pre-order now! This title will publish on 8/1/2020.
Interest Level: Kindergarten – Grade 3
Families can include one child and one parent, multiple parents and grandparents with many children, and everything in between. Explore diverse families and the many ways that they care for one another.
The Gay Rights Movement
Interest Level: Grade 3 – Grade 6
A lot has changed throughout the history of the gay rights movement. In 1969, the Stonewall Riots brought light to a movement that would later establish gay pride parades and persist in the fight for same-sex marriage. But allies and LGBTQ+ community members are still fighting for progress today. What are the gay rights movement’s main concerns today? And what challenges has the movement faced? Learn about the key people and events that have paved the way for the modern gay rights movement and how members from the LGBTQ+ community have joined the cause to advocate for equal rights.
Sincerely, Harriet
Interest Level: Grade 4 – Grade 8
Harriet Flores struggles with boredom and an unrequited crush while learning to manage her chronic illness through a long, hot, 1990s summer in Chicago. She uses her imagination to cope, which sometimes gets her into trouble, as she makes up fantastical fibs and wonders if there are ghosts upstairs. One neighbor, Pearl, encourages Harriet to read and write, leading Harriet to have a breakthrough and discover the power of storytelling.
Frida Kahlo: Artist and Activist
Interest Level: Grade 4 – Grade 8
Decades after her death, Mexican artist Frida Kahlo remains an icon for Chicanos as well as for the feminist and LGBTQ+ movements. Read about her life as an artist and political activist.
Queer, 2nd Edition: The Ultimate LGBTQ Guide for Teens
Interest Level: Grade 6 – Grade 12
Teen life is hard enough, but for teens who are LGBTQ, it can be even harder. When do you decide to come out? Will your friends accept you? And how do you meet people to date? Queer is a humorous, engaging, and honest guide that helps LGBTQ teens come out to friends and family, navigate their social life, figure out if a crush is also queer, and challenge bigotry and homophobia. Personal stories from the authors and sidebars on queer history provide relatable context. This completely revised and updated edition is a must-read for any teen who thinks they might be queer or knows someone who is.
Transgender Lives: Complex Stories, Complex Voices
Interest Level: Grade 6 – Grade 12
“I didn’t hear the word transgender until I was eighteen, when a person I was dating came out as trans. My boyfriend came out as my girlfriend, and I thought, ‘What . . . is that?’ She said, ‘I just don’t think I’m a man.’ And I said, ‘Guess what? Neither do I.’ And then the skies parted, and I understood who I was.”—Katie Burgess, nonprofit director and community activist/organizer
Meet Katie, Hayden, Dean, Brooke, David, Julia, and Natasha. Each is transgender, and in this book, they share their personal stories. Through their narratives, you’ll get to know and love each person for their humor, intelligence, perseverance, and passion. You’ll learn how they each came to better understand, accept, and express their gender identities, and you’ll follow them through the sorrows and successes of their personal journeys.
Transgender Lives helps you understand what it means to be transgender in America while learning more about transgender history, the broad spectrum of transgender identities, and the transition process. You’ll explore the challenges transgender Americans face, including discrimination, prejudice, bullying and violence, unequal access to medical care, and limited legal protections. For transgender readers, these stories offer support and encouragement. Transgender Lives is a space for trans* voices to be heard and to express the complexities of gender while focusing on what it means to be human.
LGBTQ+ Athletes Claim the Field: Striving for Equality
Interest Level: Grade 7 – Grade 12
In 2015, the world watched as soccer star Abby Wambach kissed her wife after the US women’s World Cup victory. Milwaukee Brewers’ minor league first baseman David Denson came out as gay. And Caitlyn Jenner, an Olympic decathlete, came out as transgender.
It hasn’t always been this way. Many great athletes have stayed in the closet their whole lives, or at least until retirement. Social attitudes, institutional policies, and laws are slow to change, but they are catching up. Together, athletes, families, educators, allies, and fans are pushing for competitive equity so that every athlete, regardless of identity, can have the opportunity to play at their very best.
Castle of Lies
Interest Level: Grade 7 – Grade 12
Thelia isn’t in line to inherit the crown, but she’s been raised to take power however she can. She’s been friends with Princess Corene her whole life, and she’s scheming to marry Bayled, the heir to the throne. But her plans must change when an army of elves invades the kingdom. Thelia, her cousin Parsifal, and Corene become trapped in the castle. An elf warrior, Sapphire, may be Thelia’s only hope of escape, but Sapphire has plans of their own. Meanwhile, an ancient magic is awakening within the castle, with the power to destroy the whole kingdom. Can Thelia find a way to protect her future—and her life?
Somebody Told Me
Interest Level: Grade 8 – Grade 12
A novel of trauma, identity, and survival.
After an assault, bigender seventeen-year-old Aleks/Alexis is looking for a fresh start—so they voluntarily move in with their uncle, a Catholic priest. In their new bedroom, Aleks/Alexis discovers they can overhear parishioners in the church confessional. Moved by the struggles of these “sinners,” Aleks/Alexis decides to anonymously help them, finding solace in their secret identity: a guardian angel instead of a victim.
But then Aleks/Alexis overhears a confession of another priest admitting to sexually abusing a parishioner. As they try to uncover the priest’s identity before he hurts anyone again, Aleks/Alexis is also forced to confront their own abuser and come to terms with their past trauma.
Stage Dreams
Interest Level: Grade 8 – Grade 12
In this rollicking queer western adventure, acclaimed cartoonist Melanie Gillman (Stonewall Award Honor Book As the Crow Flies) puts readers in the saddle alongside Flor and Grace, a Latinx outlaw and a trans runaway, as they team up to thwart a Confederate plot in the New Mexico Territory. When Flor—also known as the notorious Ghost Hawk—robs the stagecoach that Grace has used to escape her Georgia home, the first thing on her mind is ransom. But when the two get to talking about Flor’s plan to crash a Confederate gala and steal some crucial documents, Grace convinces Flor to let her join the heist.
Tying the Knot: A World History of Marriage
Interest Level: Grade 8 – Grade 12
For thousands of years, marriage was a business transaction between two families. Fathers chose husbands for their daughters to build power, wealth, and social status. Rules about acceptable spouses were strict. Interfaith and interracial marriages were often forbidden.
Over the centuries, laws and traditions governing marriage have changed dramatically. In the United States, interfaith and interracial marriages are common. Same-sex marriages are legal there and in many nations. In some places, however, centuries-old customs are still firmly in place. Modern matrimony has its ugly sides, such as rape, forced marriages, and bitter divorces. Learn about the good and the bad, with people from around the world discussing the complexities and the joys of marriage.
Pointe, Claw
Interest Level: Grade 8 – Grade 12
Jessie Vale dances in an elite ballet program. She has to be perfect to land a spot with the professional company. When Jessie is cast in an animalistic avant-garde production, her careful composure cracks wide open.
Meanwhile, her friend Dawn McCormick’s world is full of holes. She wakes in strange places, bruised, battered, and unable to speak. The doctors are out of ideas.
These childhood friends are both running out of time. At every turn, they crash into the many ways girls are watched, judged, used, and discarded. Should they play it safe or go feral?
Into the Streets: A Young Person’s Visual History of Protest in the United States
Note: Due to the ongoing situation, this book’s publication date has been moved from August. It is available for pre-order and is scheduled to release on July 7, 2020.
Interest Level: Grade 9 – Grade 12
What does it mean to resist? Throughout our nation’s history, discrimination and unjust treatment of all kinds have prompted people to make their objections and outrage known. Some protests involve large groups of people, marching or holding signs with powerful slogans. Others start with quotes or hashtags on social media that go viral and spur changes in behavior. People can make their voices heard in hundreds of different ways.
Join author Marke Bieschke on this visual voyage of resistance through American history. Discover the artwork, music, fashion, and creativity of the activists. Meet the leaders of the movements, and learn about the protests that helped to shape the United States from all sides of the political spectrum. Examples include key events from women’s suffrage, the civil rights movement, occupations by Native American nations, LGBTQ demands for equality, Tea Party protests, Black Lives Matter protests, and more.
This free sample chapter is about the Stonewall Riots.
The Truth Is
Interest Level: Grade 9 – Grade 12
Named one of the best YA Latinx books of 2019 by Remezcla and HipLatina.
A Bustle Book Club Selection
A powerful exploration of love, identity, and self-worth through the eyes of a fierce, questioning Puerto Rican teen.
Fifteen-year-old Verdad doesn’t think she has time for love. She’s still struggling to process the recent death of her best friend, Blanca; dealing with the high expectations of her hardworking Puerto Rican mother and the absence of her remarried father; and keeping everyone at a distance. But when she meets Danny, a new guy at school—who happens to be trans—all bets are off. Verdad suddenly has to deal with her mother’s disapproval of her relationship with Danny as well as her own prejudices and questions about her identity, and Danny himself, who is comfortable in his skin but keeping plenty of other secrets.
The Disturbed Girl’s Dictionary
Interest Level: Grade 9 – Grade 12
A 2019 YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults Selection
A 2018 New York Public Library Best Book for Teens
Macy’s school officially classifies her as “disturbed,” but Macy isn’t interested in how others define her. She’s got more pressing problems: her mom can’t move off the couch, her dad’s in prison, her brother’s been kidnapped by Child Protective Services, and now her best friend isn’t speaking to her. Writing in a dictionary format, Macy explains the world in her own terms—complete with gritty characters and outrageous endeavors. With an honesty that’s both hilarious and fearsome, slowly Macy reveals why she acts out, why she can’t tell her incarcerated father that her mom’s cheating on him, and why her best friend needs protection . . . the kind of protection that involves Macy’s machete.
Alice + Freda Forever: A Murder in Memphis
Interest Level: Grade 9 – Grade 12
In 1892, America was obsessed with a teenage murderess, but it wasn’t her crime that shocked the nation—it was her motivation. Nineteen-year-old Alice Mitchell had planned to pass as a man in order to marry her seventeen-year-old fiancée Freda Ward, but when their love letters were discovered, they were forbidden from ever speaking again. Freda adjusted to this fate with an ease that stunned a heartbroken Alice. Her desperation grew with each unanswered letter—and her father’s razor soon went missing. On January 25, Alice publicly slashed her ex-fiancée’s throat. Her same-sex love was deemed insane by her father that very night, and medical experts agreed: This was a dangerous and incurable perversion. As the courtroom was expanded to accommodate national interest, Alice spent months in jail—including the night that three of her fellow prisoners were lynched (an event which captured the attention of journalist and civil rights activist Ida B. Wells). After a jury of “the finest men in Memphis” declared Alice insane, she was remanded to an asylum, where she died under mysterious circumstances just a few years later. Alice + Freda Forever recounts this tragic, real-life love story with over 100 illustrated love letters, maps, artifacts, historical documents, newspaper articles, courtroom proceedings, and intimate, domestic scenes.
Life on Earth Series
Interest Level: Grade 9 – Grade 12
A sci-fi-tinged YA graphic novel trilogy from acclaimed cartoonist MariNaomi. A group of teenagers struggles with early romances and fraying friendships against the backdrop of a classmate’s possible alien abduction and mysterious return. The headstrong Emily, the aloof Brett, the insecure Nigel, and the awkward Paula are all learning how to deal with life’s challenges—and an alien presence might be affecting them too. Different chapters focus on different characters, and MariNaomi adopts a distinct visual style with each change in point of view.
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