It’s Children’s Book Week, an annual celebration of books for children and teens that launched in 1919. Not only is 2019 a milestone anniversary for that event, however; it’s also a milestone anniversary year for queer-inclusive children’s books, too: ones for teens have been around since 1969; picture books since 1979. Let’s mark the occasion with a look at some of the LGBTQ children’s books published so far in 2019.
A majority of titles in the American Library Association’s (ALA’s) latest annual list of the Top 11 Most Challenged Books were challenged or banned because of their LGBTQ content. Two of the books were also burned.
Not only has the number of LGBTQ-inclusive picture books increased greatly over the past few years, but more and more are being published even for the very youngest children. Here are some new ones (board books and otherwise) aimed at babies, toddlers, and preschoolers.
A maiden falls in love with a princess at a multiracial royal court in a delightful new children’s book that adds to the growing collection of LGBTQ fairy tales.
A coloring book about a girl with two dads who imagines herself as a “princess ballerina” reminds us that princesses come in many forms and have many strengths, separately and together.
Arthur Levine, best known as the U.S. editor of Harry Potter, is leaving publishing giant Scholastic to start his own publishing company focused on diverse books and creators.
This year is the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots—but also marks the decennial anniversaries of several groundbreaking LGBTQ-inclusive books for children and young adults in the U.S. Walk through the decades with me.
It’s one of my favorite days of the year! The American Library Association has given its 2019 Stonewall Awards and several other key awards to some of the best LGBTQ-inclusive children’s and young adult books out there—and announced the top picks from its 2019 Rainbow Book List of librarian-recommended, LGBTQ-inclusive children’s and YA titles.
It’s the 5th Annual Multicultural Children’s Book Day! Here are a few of my picks that emphasize the “multi” in “multicultural”—books that are both LGBTQ inclusive and diverse in other ways.
When I first read Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women as a child, I identified most with tomboy Jo, as did many a fledgling queer girl, I imagine. Now, a new graphic novel reimagines the four March sisters as a modern, multiracial family—and yes (spoiler alert), Jo is gay.
