Today is Multicultural Children’s Book Day, so I’m showcasing 14 picture books that are both LGBTQ inclusive and celebrate various cultures around the world!
In compiling this list, I’ve abided by the Multicultural Children’s Book Day site definition of multicultural children’s books as:
- Books that contain characters of color as well as main characters that represent a minority point of view.
- Books that are written by an author of diversity or color from their perspective. Search #ownvoices to discover diverse books written by diverse authors.
- Books that share ideas, stories, and information about cultures, race, religion, language, and traditions. These books can be non-fiction but still written in a way that kids will find entertaining and informative.
- Books that embrace special needs or even “hidden disabilities” like ADHD, ADD, and anxiety.
- Books that show IBPOC readers what is POSSIBLE–like a book that shows an Asian child as an astronaut, a child from Sudan as an actress, or a biracial child as a world leader.
The titles below are happily not the only LGBTQ-inclusive books that meet this definition, but they’re some of my favorites. Click the titles for more details and fuller reviews. For many more, search my database and use the various tags to filter by different racial, religious, and cultural identities!
Click the titles below for more details and fuller reviews.
Sharice’s Big Voice: A Native Kid Becomes a Congresswoman, by Sharice Davids and Nancy K. Mays, illustrated by Joshua Mangeshig Pawis-Steckley (HarperCollins). A powerful autobiography by Sharice Davids, one of the first two Native American women elected to Congress and the first openly lesbian Native American to hold such an office. This is a story written to inspire, and likely will, serving as a mirror for those who share one or more of Davids’ identities and for anyone whose path takes them places they didn’t expect.
Moondragon in the Mosque Garden, by El-Farouk Khaki and Troy Jackson, illustrated by Katie Commodore (Flamingo Rampant). Three Muslim children, including one with two dads, encounter a magical creature on Eid al-Fitr and learn a lesson about caring for the Earth.
I Looked Into Your Eyes: A Poem for New Families, by Aviva L. Brown and Rivka Badik-Schultz, illustrated by Catherine Sipoy (SpringLight). Celebrates diverse families in the Jewish spiritual tradition, including ones with same-sex and gender non-conforming parents and Jewish families of color.
Colors of Aloha, by Kanoa Kau-Arteaga, illustrated by J. R. Keaolani Bogac-Moore (Flamingo Rampant). Follows a group of Hawai’ian children, plus one older brother and his boyfriend, as they explore their island and learn their colors.
My Rainbow, by Deshanna Neal and Trinity Neal, illustrated by Art Twink (Kokila). Based on Trinity’s own life as a Black transgender girl with autism, this book tells of her mom and nonbinary sibling helping her get the long hair she wants to express her true self.
When We Love Someone We Sing to Them/Cuando Amamos Cantamos, by Ernesto Javier Martinez and illustrated by Maya Gonzalez (Reflection Press). A lyrical bilingual book that honors the Mexican serenata tradition even as reframes it to include one boy creating a love song for another, with the help of his father. Pura Belpré Honor Award winner Maya Christina Gonzalez deserves equal credit for her vibrant illustrations.
My Footprints, by Bao Phi, iIllustrated by Basia Tran (Capstone Editions). A Vietnamese American girl gets teased by classmates about her two moms and told to “go back where I come from.” She finds solace in imitating wild creatures and her moms draw on their own cultural identities (Vietnamese American and South Asian Hindu) to help her pretend.
Love Is in the Hair, written and illustrated by Syrus Marcus Ware (Flamingo Rampant). A child is staying with her two uncles while waiting for the birth of a new sibling, and learns the stories of her family through the objects woven into the dreadlocks of one uncle’s hair. The uncles’ queerness is incidental; this is simply a charming tale of the way we collect, keep, and share family memories.
Carlos, The Fairy Boy/Carlos, El Niño Hada, written and illustrated by Juan A. Ríos Vega (Reflection Press). The bilingual story of a boy learning about his cultural traditions in Panama while he gets support from his abuela and a queer elder to follow his fairy boy dreams.
Born Ready: The True Story of a Boy Named Penelope, by Jodie Patterson, illustrated by Charnelle Pinkney Barlow (Crown). Penelope is “no ordinary kid.” Penelope is a ninja—strong and smart, with ninja moves. It’s hard to be a ninja with a name like “Penelope,” though, when everyone calls you “cute.” And no one sees that Penelope is a boy—so he has to tell them, in an affirming picture book that is also a true story, written by the real boy’s mother. One particular cultural touch is that Penelope’s Ghanaian grandfather comments that in his language of Twi, “gender isn’t such a big deal. We don’t use gender pronouns.”
Ritu Weds Chandni, by Ameya Narvankar (Yali Publishing). A Hindu girl attends the wedding of her cousin Ritu to another woman and stands up against those who would stop them.
47,000 Beads, by Angel Adeyoha and Koja Adeyoha, illustrated by Holly McGillis (Flamingo Rampant). A Lakota child gets a little help from her aunt, mother, cousin, and a two-spirit elder in expressing a two-spirit self and dancing at a pow wow.
The Boy & the Bindi, by Vivek Shraya and illustrated by Rajni Perera (Arsenal Pulp). A Hindu boy asks his mother about her bindi. She gives him one of his own, which helps him expand his conception of gender. Lyrical and heartfelt.
I Am Perfectly Designed, by Karamo Brown and Jason Rachel Brown, illustrated by Anoosha Syed (Henry Holt). Karamo Brown, star of Netflix’s Queer Eye and father of two, has written a sweet children’s book with his son that celebrates the love between a father and child. A gentle yet affirming conversation between a young Black boy and his father about their life together, as they walk through their vibrant, multicultural, queer-inclusive neighborhood.
