Queer-Inclusive Books and More to Keep Your Family Engaged During Social Isolation

• Books for Kids, Kids' Activities • children's books, Covid-19

Many of us will be home with our kids for a while as our world tries to contain the Coronavirus. I thought this would be a good time to recap some of the recent queer and queer-ish kids’ books I’ve reviewed, to help keep kids entertained as we cope with this shift in our lives.

Spring 2020 LGBTQ Kids' Books

Here are some of the LGBTQ-inclusive kids’ books that have been published this year—I’ve reviewed them all at length before, but in case you’ve missed any:

Picture Books

  • A Kid of Their Own, written by Megan Dowd Lambert and illustrated by Jessica Lanan (Charlesbridge), includes clever wordplay, adorable animals, gay farmers, and adoption. It’s the sequel to Lambert’s charming 2016 Ezra Jack Keats New Writer Honor Book, A Crow of His Own (illustrated by David Hyde Costello), though the earlier book isn’t necessary to understand the new one. (Full review.)
  • In It’s Okay to Be a Unicorn, by Jason Tharp (Imprint/Macmillan), Cornelius J. Sparklesteed is known and loved throughout the town of Hoofington for his incredible handmade hats. Hoofington is a friendly place … unless you’re a unicorn. And Cornelius is hiding a secret, in a new book that isn’t explicitly queer-inclusive—but that offers an obvious analogy. (Full review.)
  • I Am Brown, written by Ashok Banker and illustrated by Sandhya Prabhat (Latana Publishing), takes us on a journey through the world of a young brown child and friends, celebrating and affirming brown children’s varied cultural and geographic origins, interests, talents, physical appearances, and relationships—and it’s inclusive of creative gender expressions as well. (Full review.)
  • An Ordinary Day, written by Elana K. Arnold and illustrated by Elizabet Vukovic (Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster), shows us nothing less than the circle of life by showing us the parallel stories of two families: one with two moms and their three kids saying goodbye to their beloved but ailing golden retriever, Sally, and another with a mom, dad, and child who are welcoming a new baby. (Full review.)
  • My best friend, by Julie Fogliano and Jillian Tamaki (Atheneum/Simon & Schuster), beautifully captures the magical spirit of childhood friendships at an age when children are still figuring out what it means to have—and to be—a friend. It’s not exactly queer inclusive, but the close relationship between the two girls is likely to resonate with a lot of queer women and girls. (Full review.)

Middle-Grade Books

  • The Deep & Dark Blue, by Niki Smith (Little, Brown), is a graphic novel in which two twins must hide with a group of magical women after a coup threatens their noble house. For one, dressing as a woman to blend in with the group is a disguise; for the other, it is the first step towards living as her real gender. (Full review.)
  • 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, focusing on a 13-year-old girl who must move in with her aunt and her wife after her mother dies. (Full review.)
  • The Only Black Girls in Town, by Brandy Colbert (Little, Brown), is the story of 12-year-old Alberta, who 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. When she and the new girl, 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. (Full review.)
  • 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, where she 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. (Full review.)
  • On the Field with … Megan Rapinoe, Alex Morgan, Carli Lloyd, and Mallory Pugh, by Matt Christopher (Little, Brown), follows Megan Rapinoe and three of her 2019 U.S. Women’s National Soccer teammates from their starts in the sport through their rise to global fame—and which also discusses Rapinoe’s coming out and its positive impact on her life. (Full review.)
  • Noisemakers (Alfred A. Knopf), a new book from Kazoo Media, has brought together 25 of today’s best women and nonbinary comic artists to offer engaging graphic biographies of “25 women who raised their voices and changed the world.” (Full review.)

Also, not queer-specific but more timely: Here are some resources on how to talk with your kids about Coronavirus in age-appropriate ways.

(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.)

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