A new, LGBTQ-inclusive, sex-positive sex-ed book for teens encourages readers to develop critical thinking skills around some of the “big questions” about sex, consent, relationships, and themselves.
In the past month, school districts in two states have tried to ban Call Me Max, a delightful picture book about a transgender boy by a transgender author, calling it “not appropriate” for the children who heard it read to them. This would be awful at any time, but at a moment when trans youth are under threat from anti-trans bills in at least 24 states, it feels like the tip of a much bigger iceberg.
When lawyer, policy advocate, and community organizer Alli Harper and her wife had their first child, they did what many LGBTQ parents do: looked for children’s books that showed two-mom and other diverse families. The difficulty of finding more than a handful, however, led Harper to launch a nationwide service that is connecting readers with these books while also pushing the publishing industry to create more.
A celebratory and body-positive book for young children discusses all the different parts of a human body, from hair and nose to nipples and genitals—and is marvelously inclusive of all genders and a wide range of skin tones, physical differences, and body types.
Lesléa Newman may be best known to readers here as the author of Heather Has Two Mommies and other children’s books. She is also, however, an award-winning poet, and her latest volume of poetry for adults is a wise and loving look at her father in the last years of his life.
There have been very few picture books featuring queer elders and grandparents, but several new ones are adding to the list!
More and more publishers, large and small, are offering kids’ books these days with LGBTQ characters and families. Sometimes, however, despite the best intentions, the content doesn’t come out quite as inclusive as intended. Such is the case for a new alphabet book.
LGBTQ-inclusive story books are wonderful—but sometimes one wants something a little more interactive. Let’s therefore look today at two queer-inclusive books that aren’t just stories, but offer young readers discussion questions, games, coloring, and more fun activities.
One new middle grade book aims to help young people learn about the contributions and accomplishments of LGBTQ people across many fields of endeavor, while another includes queer people among innovators of all identities who have made their marks on the world.
Some picture-book biographies of gay and lesbian people mention their queerness in passing and move on. But a new picture-book biography of Megan Rapinoe shows the evolution of her realization that she is gay while she also rises to soccer superstardom.
