Five picture books and five middle grade titles are among the finalists announced yesterday for the 37th Lambda Literary Awards. Let’s take a closer look at the titles and the significance of the awards.
Children’s Books
What strikes me most about this year’s Lammy finalists (covering books published in 2024) is the range of approaches. Among the children’s (picture) books, there’s a historical biography; a story about a growing family; a timely tale about a gender creative child’s response to a book ban; a story about a family’s holiday celebration in which the fact that there are two moms is incidental to the plot; and a love story inspired by history, with the feel of a fable.
Click images for my reviews.
Middle Grade
In the middle grade titles, we have a tween (who might be bi or pan) trying to find herself and not just please others; a queer tween (who might be nonbinary) in a novel in verse about found family, with a light touch of magical realism; a tween girl in a humorous novel about friendships, crushes, and coming out; a fantasy adventure with a nonbinary squire and a disabled princess at the fore; and a mystery-horror adventure with a transgender demiboy protagonist and an underlying theme about embracing all parts of ourselves.
Click images for my reviews.
Further Thoughts
I can think of a few other children’s book and middle grade titles published in 2024 that I would have liked to see on the list as well, but that would require expanding the number of finalists beyond the five allowed for each category. I don’t envy the difficult choices the judges had to make in evaluating all of the year’s titles. (I also don’t know if the additional titles were even submitted; you can’t win if you don’t play, as the saying goes, and I encourage authors and publishers to submit their 2025 titles as soon as submissions open in January 2026.)
The Lambda Literary Awards began in 1988, and in 1989 gave out the first award in the “Children’s/Young Adult” category (now happily three separate age categories), with MaryKate Jordan’s picture book Losing Uncle Tim, about an uncle with HIV/AIDS, winning over several finalists, including what would become perhaps the most well-known LGBTQ-inclusive picture book, Lesléa Newman’s Heather Has Two Mommies.
We should remember, of course, that many titles never make award lists but show characters, identities, families, or situations that simply resonate with particular readers. A book’s personal impact and importance may have nothing to do with the awards it wins.
Nevertheless, awards like the Lammies (and the American Library Association’s Stonewall Book Awards) are significant in that they showcase some of the best written (and illustrated) books with LGBTQ representation, which are often among the best books in any category, LGBTQ or not. And as Lambda Literary Executive Director J. Clapp said in a press release, “This year’s shortlist represents the voices and resilience of LGBTQ+ people in a time when our stories are under attack through legislation and misinformation.”
The visibility that the awards bring to the books is important for those who want to find such books for themselves or their children, and for those who want to recommend them to schools and libraries and need an authoritative imprimatur. Awards may also be useful in some circumstances to those defending the books against bans and restrictions (although awards from an LGBTQ organization may not carry much weight to those firmly set on banning LGBTQ representation).
To authors and illustrators, the awards are a recognition of their work and an accolade that may help them with future promotion and publication opportunities. As Lambda Literary noted, “For many LGBTQ+ authors, the Lammys were among the first awards to recognize their work, and the list of past winners includes many names still widely celebrated.”
The Lammy winners will be announced on October 4. In the meantime, check out the finalists above, filter my Database of LGBTQ Family Books with the “Lambda Literary Award” tag to see the children’s and middle grade winners from past years, and see the Lambda Literary website for a complete list of the finalists in every category (including young adult books, which I don’t cover for my database). Congratulations to all!