I don’t cover a lot of young adult fiction here; the other age groups keep me busy enough. I’m making an exception today, however, not only because I happen to know the author, but because the book is a rare YA novel that I found myself reading for my own sake, not just with an eye to how it would impact younger readers. It’s the queer historical fiction novel I never knew I wanted.
The home where pioneering LGBTQ and civil rights activists Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin lived for more than five decades may become a local historic landmark, as the San Francisco Board of Supervisors has taken the first step towards giving it that designation. The two women may be best known as the first same-sex couple to marry legally in San Francisco, but the legacy of these mothers of our movement is bigger than that.
It’s been a couple of years since I’ve done a roundup of kids’ books on LGBTQ history and there have been many new ones in that time! Here’s a fresh list of old and new for LGBTQ History Month—including an upcoming picture book about Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera!
Two similarly named books coming out this month offer tweens and teens a colorful look at some of the revolutions and revolutionaries of LGBTQ history.
LGBTQ civil rights icon Phyllis Lyon died yesterday from natural causes at her home in San Francisco. She was 95. She and her spouse Del Martin were the first same-sex couple to marry legally in San Francisco in 2008—but her contribution to LGBTQ equality goes far beyond that.
An updated and expanded edition of a Stonewall Honor-winning book for middle-graders on Pride and the LGBTQ-rights movement is just the thing for anyone wanting to bring some queerness into their COVID-19 homeschooling—but it’s also bound to be a much-read volume for years to come.
A new book from Kazoo Media has brought together 25 of today’s best women and nonbinary comic artists to offer engaging graphic biographies of “25 women who raised their voices and changed the world.” And when the promotional blurbs on the covers are from Jacqueline Woodson and Alison Bechdel, you know it’s going to be good.
It’s Lesbian Visibility Day, so here are a few tidbits of early visible lesbian mom history to honor those who went before us. (Plus a bonus photo of my own family being visible.)
In addition to being Martin Luther King Jr. Day, today marks the beginning of GLSEN’s annual No Name-Calling Week, when schools across the country will be having activities and events to encourage kindness and end name-calling and bullying. Did you know the event was started because of a book written by a gay dad?
LGBTQ History Month offers us a wonderful opportunity each October to look at the growing number of books for children and youth on LGBTQ history—including several that are new this year.
