You’ve heard of Thomas Edison—but have you heard of Margaret Knight? She was a contemporary of Edison and the holder of at least two dozen U.S. patents. (Some sources say nearly 90, but the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office says 26, and I take them for the authority.) She created her first invention, a safety mechanism for mechanical looms, when she was only 12.
Children’s books with gender nonconforming/transgender protagonists are rare, but over the past year or so there have been some encouraging signs of progress.
A new American Library Association (ALA) list of recommended LGBTQ-inclusive books for children and young adults shows that characters who are transgender, bisexual, and of ambiguous identity are taking their place solidly beside more traditional gay and lesbian ones.
Wisconsin high school librarian Lynn Evarts, who chairs the ALA committee that chooses the annual “Rainbow Bibliography,” said she is “very happy” that the fifth annual version of the list, announced January 22, is so diverse.
My third-grade son has been enjoying biographies, learning things even I didn’t know about Thomas Edison and Benjamin Franklin. So when I read that Frank Kameny, one of the founding fathers of the gay equality movement, was honored November 15 by a memorial service at the Cannon House Office Building near the U.S. Capitol, I
This year brought us several new books, fiction and non-fiction, featuring lesbian- and gay-headed familes. While we might hope for greater quantity (and greater diversity across the LGBT spectrum), the quality was at least very good. Here are some of the best.
(I broke this story a few weeks ago in my Mombian newspaper column, reprinted below. It’s about a lesbian teen making a difference—and underscores for me how much things have changed since I was a teen. Despite the horror stories we still hear about bullying, suicide, and other ills, there are more gay-straight alliance clubs,
My eight-year-old son and I stumbled upon a book the other day that he’s been unable to put down: The Secret Science Alliance and the Copycat Crook, by Eleanor Davis. If you roll your eyes at the school-despising, slacker mentality of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series (however funny they may be), or if your kids love graphic novels, kid heroes, and/or science, you (and they) will love this.
It’s Banned Books Week, the the American Library Association’s (ALA) annual celebration of the freedom to read. I can think of no better way to celebrate than to point out a new interview by NPR’s Terry Gross of children’s literature icon Maurice Sendak, about his new book, Bumble-Ardy. Sendak’s book In the Night Kitchen made the ALA’s
Authors Rachel Manija Brown and Sherwood Smith wrote in a post at Publishers Weekly this week that a literary agent told them to make a gay character in their young adult novel straight if they wanted the agent to represent them. It’s unfortunately not an isolated occurence. If you’re wondering why, author Patricia Nell Warren
I often write about banned books here, and love the annual Banned Books Week in September. This year, the American Library Association is encouraging anyone celebrating the freedom to read to take part in a Virtual Read-Out on YouTube. School Library Journal has the details: The criteria are simple: create a video that’s less than two minutes
