9 Kids’ Books About the Stonewall Riots

Stonewall: A Building. An Uprising. A Revolution, by Rob Sanders, illustrated by Jamey Christoph (Random House). Rob Sanders’ picture book about Stonewall tells the story from the perspective of the Stonewall Inn itself. This both immerses readers in the setting and avoids privileging any one LGBTQ person’s perspective on what happened. It is not a tale of walls and bricks, however, for the Inn’s narration focuses on the people in its neighborhood, and Jamey Christoph’s evocative illustrations capture their diversity of race, gender identity, and sexual orientation. While the story is simplified for younger readers, it is no less moving for it.

Sylvia and Marsha Start a Revolution! The Story of the Trans Women of Color Who Made LGBTQ+ History, by Joy Michael Ellison, illustrated by Teshika Silver (Jessica Kingsley). An inspiring history that focuses on the close friendship of Stonewall icons and transgender women of color Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson and how they cared for their community. This story of friendship, community, and revolution rightly gives Sylvia and Marsha their place on our kids’ bookshelves alongside the mostly White and male figures who have dominated LGBTQ picture book biographies.

’Twas the Night Before Pride, by Joanna McClintick, illustrated by Juana Medina (Candlewick). This fun take on the classic poem gives us a vision of Pride through the eyes of a child with two moms. While there’s more to it than just an explanation of Stonewall, a major sequence in it involves the protagonist, a child with two moms, happily retelling the history of Pride to their younger sibling. McClintick and Medina—both queer moms—drew on queer historians, archives, and museums to develop the Pride history that the child narrates. It’s an abbreviated version of the events that happened at the Stonewall Inn, but captures the key points. The illustrations show the gender and racial diversity of the participants and the central role of transgender women of color. Also available in Spanish.

Flor Fights Back: A Stonewall Riots Survival Story, by Joy Michael Ellison, illustrated by Francesca Ficorilli (Stone Arch Books). An engaging novel of historical fiction with a young trans protagonist of color, set in New York City at the time of the Stonewall Riots. Readers will likely find themselves, like Flor, motivated by the possibilities of freedom and equality that the riots catalyzed, and inspired by the models of strong trans girls of color. “I wanted to make sure that Flor and Tami reflected the vibrant intelligence and determination of the real girls who inspired their story,” Ellison says. I think they have succeeded. Even purely nonfiction books about Stonewall for this age group rarely convey the happenings and significance of the event so clearly and with such impact.

History Comics: The Stonewall Riots: Making a Stand for LGBTQ Rights, by Archie Bongiovanni, illustrated by A. Andrews. In this fun yet informative graphic novel, modern queer teens Natalia, Jax, and Rashad are magically transported back to the Stonewall Inn in June 1969. This allows for a narration of the events of that fateful evening. The story is obviously fictionalized, but is in many ways one of the best short LGBTQ histories for this age group. The protagonists also represent various mindsets about advocacy, offering readers various points of entry into the tale. Other books may offer more details in some areas, but few will engage readers as well as this one, whetting their appetites for reading more about history and perhaps even making it themselves.

The Stonewall Riots: Coming Out in the Streets, by Gayle Pitman (Harry N. Abrams). This middle-grade history of Stonewall is organized around 50 representative objects, including the “Statement of Purpose” from the Daughters of Bilitis, the first lesbian civil rights group in the U.S.; a matchbook from Gene Compton’s Cafeteria, site of a pre-Stonewall police raid in Los Angeles; a photograph of trans advocate Marsha P. Johnson; another of bisexual activist Brenda Howard; and a New York city police nightstick. Pitman weaves the stories behind these objects into a compelling narrative that feels both accessible and substantial. She captures much of what history is really about: piecing together clues to what happened, asking questions that don’t always have answers, and realizing there are often multiple sides to a story. The book should stand not just as a history of one event or movement (although it does that exceptionally well), but as an example of how history for young people can be made enthralling, nuanced, and relevant to their lives today.

Hispanic Star: Sylvia Rivera, by Claudia Romo Edelman and J. Gia Loving, illustrated by Cheyne Gallarde (Roaring Brook Press). Transgender icon Sylvia Rivera is the focus of this readable and informative middle-grade biography that looks at her life from her birth to immigrant, migrant parents to her involvement at Stonewall and activism in helping trans youth. A welcome middle-grade biography of a figure who has long been due one.

Content warning: Mention of her mother’s death after poisoning herself; mention of the anger and threatening behavior of her half-sister’s father and of other bullying.

Also available in Spanish.

What Was Stonewall? by Nico Medina, illustrated by Jake Murray (Penguin Workshop). This narrative begins in June 2015, as people came to the Stonewall Inn to celebrate the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to allow nationwide marriage equality. It then goes back to look at gay and queer life in New York City’s Greenwich Village in the 19th and early 20th centuries, before moving forward to the fateful night in June 1969. Final chapters look at the later LGBTQ rights movement up through 2016. While this is meant as an introductory overview, it jumps around a lot, touching on things as disparate as the AIDS crisis, Matthew Shepard’s murder, Ellen DeGeneres’ coming out, and conversion therapy. It also uses the term “gay” a bit too often when it should be using more inclusive terms for the LGBTQ community, and only includes Stonewall icon and trans woman Marsha P. Johnson in a sidebar (and on the cover). It is a well-intended and positive treatment of LGBTQ history overall, however, and part of a popular middle-grade series of history books.

The Stonewall Riots: The Fight for LGBT Rights, by Tristan Poehlmann (Essential Library). From an educational publisher, this solid if slightly dry overview focuses on the events of the Stonewall Riots and the immediate aftermath, and is aligned to Common Core Standards and correlated to state standards. Overall, we get a number of different perspectives and a sense of how the riots impacted an entire neighborhood—and then spurred on a movement. It is only available in a $30+ library edition, which may make it a better library pick than one for home bookshelves.