A Gift Guide to Books for LGBTQ Families

It was a good year for books about LGBTQ families and youth. Here are some of my 2016 favorites—great for gift giving or borrowing from the library to read with family over the holidays.

Young Adult

Mariko Tamaki’s Saving Montgomery Sole gives us the story of a small-town teen whose two moms, lack of fashion sense, and exasperation with most of her classmates brand her an outsider. Her two misfit best friends, however, including proudly gay Thomas, make life bearable, and together they plumb unexplained phenomena like ESP and mysterious amulets. When a well-known, homophobic preacher moves to town and his son enrolls in their high school, things look set for a confrontation—but Tamaki avoids clichés and easy answers in this charming, quirky tale.

For Middle Grades

The four boys and two dads of Dana Alison Levy’s award-winning middle-grade novel The Misadventures of the Family Fletcher return in The Family Fletcher Takes Rock Island. This time, the multi-racial, multi-ethnic family is off on their yearly vacation, only to discover that the lighthouse they loved is being targeted for destruction by a real estate developer. They try to prevent this while also dealing with two new girls next door, teaching their cats to swim, an episode of racial profiling (thoughtfully handled), and a madcap Shakespeare production. A fun family romp with lots of heart.

M.G. Hennessey’s The Other Boy is told from the perspective of Shane Woods, a 12-year-old boy who likes making graphic novels, hanging out with his best friend, and being the star pitcher of his baseball team. He’s also transgender, but none of his friends know. When a school bully finds out, Shane fears he will lose everything. And while his mother has been unfailingly supportive of Shane’s gender identity, his dad still struggles. Hennessey does a splendid job showing that trans youth can have support from family, friends, and teachers, while including enough realistic-seeming obstacles not to appear pollyannaish.

The traditional fairy tale trope gets flipped in Katie O’Neill’s graphic novel Princess Princess Ever After, in which Amira, a Black princess with a shave-sided haircut, rescues Princess Sadie, a White princess trapped by her evil sister. Sadie eventually rescues Amira in return and the two feisty royals fall in love. The graphic form will have wide appeal; some of the language, in complexity (“spontaneous,” “fulfillment”) and tone (“butthead”) may make it better for middle-grade readers than younger ones.

Archer McGill, the fifth-grade protagonist of Newbery Medalist Richard Peck’s The Best Man, is on the cusp of puberty and learning what it means to be a man. His role models include his dad, his grandpa, and his uncle, who is gay. So is his new teacher, who comes out in class in order to address anti-gay discrimination. His uncle and his teacher soon begin to have feelings for each other, but Peck is skillful enough to avoid making this a pedantic story about equality. He keeps the focus on Archer’s relationship with friends and family, and gives us a lovely coming-of-age tale with a good dose of humor and a lot of love.

For those seeking non-fiction, Pride: Celebrating Diversity and Community, by Robin Stevenson, is packed with engaging text and colorful photos. It skillfully blends a history of the event with a broader look at the struggle for LGBTQ equality both before and after, along with a look at what it means to come out, what to expect at Pride events around the world today, a glossary, and a thoughtful explanation of gender identity.

Picture Books

Megan Dowd Lambert’s Real Sisters Pretend, inspired by the author’s own daughters, is told from the perspective of two sisters, one White (possibly Latina), and one Black. Although they love to pretend they are princesses on an adventure, they don’t have to pretend that they are sisters, the older one tells the younger. She further explains how they came to be adopted by their two moms. The love between them shines from every page.

The boy featured in Vera Williams’ Home at Last can’t fall asleep after being adopted by his two dads. They try many things to help him feel at home—until their dog, who crawls into bed to comfort and protect him, provides the solution. Illustrations by two-time Caldecott Medalist Chris Raschka make this book extra special.

Young Emma of Meryl Gordon’s The Flower Girl Wore Celery is asked to be the flower girl at her cousin Hannah’s wedding to someone named Alex. Emma has some misconceptions, however—including thinking that a “celery dress” is covered with stalks of celery (rather than simply being light green) and that Alex is a woman—but takes it all in stride. The Jewish wedding makes this an obvious choice for Jewish families, but also for other parents wanting to show their children different traditions.

Friends of the wriggly protagonists in J. J. Austrian’s Worm Loves Worm are helping them plan their wedding, but say there can only be one bride and one groom. The worms insist, however, that they can be either. The book goes beyond other children’s books showing same-sex weddings by reminding us that not all couples follow traditional expressions of gender.

In Keesha’s South African Adventure, by Cheril N. Clarke and Monica Bey-Clarke, after a young girl learns about South Africa in school, she begs her two moms to take her there. They surprise her with a trip, where she learns about South African animals, food, and landmarks, then returns to tell her classmates about it. This is the second book about Keesha, and it’s great to see a series featuring an LGBTQ couple of color and their child—still an unfortunate rarity.

The Great Big Body Book, by Mary Hoffman, explores how our bodies grow and the things they help us do. Hoffman observes, “Some bits of your body are different, according to whether you are male or female.” A few people, however, “don’t feel completely comfortable in the body they were born in and not everyone fits neatly into a ‘boy’ or ‘girl’ box. That’s OK—just be yourself,” she advises. It’s a good, if simplistic, introduction to the idea of gender identity, and great to see in a book targeting mainstream readers.

All Kinds of Families, first published in 1976, was one of the first widely available picture books to show families other than White, mom-dad households. Now, its 40th anniversary edition also includes same-sex parents. As in the original, the book stresses the cycles of family life, both happy and sad. Satisfyingly, too, it emphasizes the importance of family storytelling.

(Originally published in shortened form as my Mombian newspaper column.)

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