New LGBTQ-Inclusive Middle Grade Books for Spring

OK, it’s not quite spring—but the new crop of LGBTQ-inclusive middle grade books that are coming out in the next few weeks are putting me in a spring-like mood. There’s humor, mystery, poignancy, adventure, romance, and a surfeit of surfing—plus a hint at what could be yet another queer-inclusive animated feature film!

New and Notable

A Home for Goddesses and Dogs, by National Book Award Finalist Leslie Connor (Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins), is a beautiful, lyrical, and insightful story about moving through grief, growing up, and finding family. Thirteen-year-old Lydia’s mother has just died after a long struggle with terminal heart disease. Her father had left long ago, so Lydia moves in with her mother’s sister Bratches and her wife Eileen. They live on a farm in Connecticut along with the elderly Elloroy, technically their landlord but effectively a part of the family. Brat and Eileen are established in their family routines, occasionally argumentative, but solid in their love for each other and for those they take in. They feel well-rounded and realistic.

Even though her new family is kind (and gently quirky), Lydia doesn’t feel quite at home, as she is still grieving her mother and trying to adapt to her new circumstances. She must also adjust to the small rural school in her new community after having been homeschooled by her mother so that the two of them could spend as much time together as possible. She finds comfort, though, in the paper “goddesses” she and her mother created together—paperwork collage constructions of women, each embodying various attributes or concepts, like The Goddess of Gratitude and The Goddess of Home Repairs. They represent the special relationship she had with her mother, though, so she isn’t ready to share them with Brat and Eileen.

The family soon adopts a similarly mistrustful rescue dog. Lydia is not a dog person and doesn’t like the misbehaving creature at first. Over time, however, we see their relationship deepen as Lydia also opens up to her aunts and her new schoolmates. Even though several classmates play an important, positive role, Connor keeps the focus on home life and how we weave the threads of family, neighborliness, and friendship. There’s also a storyline involving a horrific act committed (not by Lydia or her family) against two baby goats at a nearby farm; this may disturb those sensitive to animal cruelty, but ultimately leads to an arc about kindness and community.

Despite the notes of tragedy woven through the story, Connor creates a tale that is ultimately joyous and buoying, giving us a marvelous gem of a book on loss, learning, and love.

The Only Black Girls in Town, by Brandy Colbert (Little, Brown), is set across the country, where 12-year-old Alberta lives with her two dads, the only Black family in their California beach town. When another 12-year-old Black girl and her mom move in across the street, Alberta is excited, even though her dads caution her that being Black doesn’t mean they’ll have the same values or interests. Indeed, the new girl, Edie, has a goth aesthetic and a city vibe, though, very different from surfing-obsessed Alberta. Edie’s parents are also separated, while Alberta’s dads are secure in their relationship—and in their relationship with Alberta’s birth mom, their surrogate, who comes for an extended visit. Alberta and Edie become friends, though, despite their differences, and despite the growing jealousy of Alberta’s White best friend Laramie.

When Alberta and Edie discover some old journals in Edie’s attic, they work together to unravel their mysteries, which leads them on a journey back through history and the toxic threads of racism, colorism, passing, and privilege in the U.S., even as they grapple with micro- (and not-so-micro) aggressions in their own community.

In lesser hands, that could have made for a clunky, pedantic tale. Colbert instead gives us a sprightly, first-person narrative that also explores a tween’s changing conceptions of self, friendship, and family. At the same time, she asks us to reflect on some big questions about difference, similarity, and the intersections of people’s identities and lives.

This is also notable as one of the few books to feature a family with same-sex parents where both parents and their child are Black; it offers both a great read and much-needed representation.

Goldie Vance: The Hotel Whodunit, by Lilliam Rivera (Little, Brown), is an original novel based on the bestselling BOOM! Studios comic series by Hope Larsen and Brittney Williams. Goldie, a biracial, queer 16-year-old, lives at the Crossed Palms Resort Hotel in Florida in the 1960s. Her dad is the hotel manager; her mom works at the nearby Mermaid Club; and Goldie is the valet and aspiring hotel detective. When a Hollywood studio comes to the resort to shoot a movie, everyone is swept up into the excitement and glamour until a diamond-encrusted swim cap goes missing. Goldie’s mom is implicated, and Goldie must call on all her detective skills to find the real thief.

There’s a beautiful film star, a bigwig producer, and a newspaper reporter actually named “Scoops”—but the story leans into its kitchiness in a way that is delightful rather than clichéd. Mystery fans will love the tale. And while this is a text-based story, there are two eight-page mini-comic inserts by Elle Power as a nod to the original comic medium.

Goldie’s queerness is canonical in the comics and clear here; there are several mentions of a girl she is interested in dating, but that isn’t part of the main plot. Rivera is planning a second volume in the series for this September, however, so we can hope this romance evolves.

Even better, perhaps, is the news that 20th Century Fox will be adapting the series, directed by Rashida Jones and produced by Kerry Washington. No time is set for the release, and there is no word yet on whether Goldie’s queerness will be evident in the film—but Washington has been an outspoken LGBTQ ally, so I’m hopeful. This could mean that two (!) animated feature films with queer protagonists will be hitting our screens soon (the other being Universal Pictures’ The Prince and the Dressmaker, about which more here).

New in Paperback

Published last year, but coming out in paperback this March are:

The Mighty Heart of Sunny St. James, by Ashley Herring Blake (Little, Brown) is a charming middle-grade romance focused on 12-year-old Sunny, who has a plan for starting a new life after a successful heart transplant. She wants to: do all of the “awesome” things she couldn’t do while she was sick; find a new best friend; and kiss a boy. The second seems to be the easiest, as Quinn Ríos Rivera, blue-haired and cool, has just moved to town with her marine biologist mother. Quinn agrees to help her with the third, until a deepening relationship between the two girls makes Sunny question that goal. To complicate matters, Sunny’s birth mother Lena, a recovering alcoholic who had given Sunny to her best friend Kate to raise, wants to reconnect. Sunny must grapple with her resentment at Lena having left her and her excitement about what Lena offers (including surfing lessons) that the overprotective Kate does not. At the same time, we see that she and Kate do love each other and must work through the transition that all parents and children go through as children hit puberty and growing independence. Sunny’s new heart is a plot device, yes, but it is also a metaphor for the new person whom all people become at that age.

The romance between Sunny and Quinn is sweet and lovely. Blake does not,  however, label Sunny’s burgeoning awareness of her sexuality. “I think I might like girls and boys,” Sunny says at one point. Whether she grows to identify as bisexual, pansexual, or anything else remains an open question, but it is to Blake’s credit that she leaves it open. We need more bisexual protagonists, but young people also may need some time to figure out their identities. Blake allows for both. Readers of all identities, however, should enjoy seeing the world through Sunny’s eyes.

Blake is also author of Ivy Aberdeen’s Letter to the World (about which more here), which won a Stonewall Children’s & Young Adult Book Honor in 2018.

To Night Owl From Dogfish, by Holly Goldberg Sloan and Meg Wolitzer (Puffin/Penguin), is a fun caper about two girls sent to the same summer camp by their single gay dads, who are dating each other. The dads want the girls to get know each other, since they might become family. The girls resist, however, thinking they have little in common. Bett is an adventurous surfer from California; Avery is bookish and fears the water. They communicate by e-mail to foil their dads’ plan—but ultimately find they are looking forward to being sisters. The authors throw in a few plot twists, however, that keep this from being a boring, linear story of creating a family. Yes, family is found, but not in the way most readers might initially guess. Told through e-mail exchanges between the girls and the various other colorful characters, this is a fun tale full of escapades that should delight young readers, with an underlying message about family that manages to be both fresh and meaningful.

There are even more great middle-grade books with LGBTQ characters coming out later this year—stay tuned!

(I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program that provides a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.)