In honor of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ) Pride Month, we’re highlighting some titles that celebrate, honor, and reflect the history and experiences of LGBTQ+ communities.
Preschool
P is for Pride by Greg Paprocki
Read with your toddler from A to Z about the LGBTQ+ community in the board book P is for Pride while supporting diverse families with kindness and love.
Love Without Bounds by Chelsea Johnston
An IntersectionAllies Book about Families is a joyful, heartwarming celebration of family in all its forms: multicultural families; LGBTQ+ families; adoptive and foster care families; single-parent and blended families; transnational families; families impacted by incarceration, detention, and deportation; chosen families; military families; and more.
Marley’s Pride by Joelle Retener
It’s Pride! Marley longs to celebrate, but big crowds and loud noises make them anxious. Can they find a way to join the parade? Includes end notes about pronouns, protests, LGBTQIA+ resources, and more.
Middle Grade
The Queen Bees of Tybee County by Kyle Casey Chu
After making the buzzer-beating shot at the Georgia basketball state championships, Derrick Chan becomes the star of Bayard Middle School, and Derrick’s single dad could not be prouder. But there are parts of Derrick that no one knows about, like the toenail polish he wears under his basketball sneakers, his secret lip-sync performances in the bathroom mirror, and the feelings he’s developing for his best friend and teammate, JJ. As the school year comes to a close, Derrick’s dad takes an out-of-town job and ships Derrick off to spend the summer with his estranged, eccentric grandmother, Claudia. Soon, Claudia introduces Derrick to the world of small-town southern beauty pageants, and Derrick suddenly feels he’s found where he belongs.
Mallory in Full Color by Elisa Stone Leahy
Mallory Marsh is an expert at molding into whatever other people want her to be. Her true thoughts and feelings only come out in her sci-fi web comic, which she publishes anonymously as Dr. BotGirl. But juggling all the versions of herself gets tricky after she secretly joins the library’s comic club. There Mal meets Noa, a cute enby kid who is very sure of who they are and how they want to start a drag queen story hour. Then Mal’s web comic goes viral, and kids at school start recognizing the unflattering characters based on Mal’s real-life friends. With negative pushback threatening the drag queen story time and Dr.BotGirl’s identity getting harder to hide, Mallory must reckon with the lies she has told.
A Song for You & I by Kay O’Neill
While their flying horse recovers from injury, a novice ranger travels by foot on a journey of self-discovery and gender exploration alongside a musical companion who shares their growing affections.
Young Adult
Let Them Stare by Joshua Van Ness and Julie Murphy
Sully is ready to get out of Hearst, Pennsylvania. With a fashion internship secured, the gender-nonconforming eighteen-year-old is trading in their stifling small town for the big city. Sully even sells their beloved car, to Bread–er, Brad–the most boring (and maybe the only other) gay kid in town. When Sully’s internship goes up in smoke, they’re trapped in Hearst with no cash–and no car. Desperate, Sully goes to the thrift store, their personal sanctuary. There they discover a vintage bag–like ‘put this baby in an airtight case at the Met’ vintage. If Sully can authenticate it, the resale value would be enough for a new life in the city. But when they begin to investigate, Sully finds themself haunted. Literally.
Roll for Love by M.K. England
Harper Reid’s summer is not off to a great start. After the death of her grandpa, she moves across the country, leaving her friends and Dungeons & Dragons group behind. She wasn’t exactly planning to start her senior year on the farm where she spent her childhood summers, but running into Ollie Shifflet—former best friend and first crush—makes things much better. When Harper discovers Ollie and her friends are starting a new D&D campaign, she quickly joins the group. As Harper and Ollie reconnect in the real world, romantic tension begins to build between Harper’s brash barbarian and Ollie’s proud paladin, but it’s all just part of the game… right?
Kirby’s Lessons for Falling (In Love) by Laura Gao
Once dubbed the Queen of Balance as her school’s top rock climber, Kirby Tan suffers an injury that sidelines her for the rest of the season. Now she’s forced to join the newspaper club for some desperately needed extra credit. Worse, she’s recruited by crystal-wearing, tarot-reading Bex Santos for her astrology-based love advice column. As Kirby reluctantly agrees to orchestrate “matches made in heaven” with Bex, she begins to wonder if their own stars could be aligned. But loving who she wants isn’t so easy when her family and church community are on the line. Can Kirby pull off her greatest balancing act yet?
Adult
The Three Lives of Cate Kay by Kate Fagan
Cate Kay knows how to craft a story. As the creator of a bestselling book trilogy that struck box office gold as a film series, she’s one of the most successful authors of her generation. The thing is, Cate Kay doesn’t really exist. She’s never attended author events or granted any interviews. Her real identity had been a closely guarded secret, until now. As a young adult, she and her best friend Amanda dreamed of escaping their difficult homes and moving to California to become movie stars. But the day before their grand adventure, a tragedy shattered their dreams and Cate has been on the run ever since, taking on different names and charting a new future. But after a shocking revelation, Cate understands that returning home is the only way she’ll be a whole person again.
The Emperor and the Endless Palace by Justinian Huang
In the year 4 BCE, an ambitious courtier is called upon to seduce the young emperor – but quickly discovers they are both ruled by blood, sex and intrigue. In 1740, a lonely innkeeper agrees to help a mysterious visitor procure a rare medicine, only to unleash an otherworldly terror instead. And in present-day Los Angeles, a college student meets a beautiful stranger and cannot shake the feeling they’ve met before. Across these seemingly unrelated timelines woven together only by the twists and turns of fate, two men are reborn, lifetime after lifetime. Within the treacherous walls of an ancient palace and the boundless forests of the Asian wilderness to the heart-pounding cement floors of underground rave scenes, our lovers are inexplicably drawn to each other, constantly tested by the worlds around them. As their many lives intertwine, they begin to realize the power of their undying love–a power that transcends time itself…but one that might consume them both.
She Loves to Cook, and She Loves to Eat by Sakaomi Yuzaki
Cooking is how Nomoto de-stresses, but one day, she finds herself making way more than she can eat by herself. And so, she invites her neighbor Kasuga, who also lives alone. What will come out of this impromptu dinner invitation…?
By Megan Vandermeer