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Otis celebrates GLBT Pride Month!
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Our book list celebrating GLBT Pride Month is compiled using the most distinguished sources for identifying the best books of merit relating to the GLBT experience. Below are the sources used.
The first and most enduring award for GLBT books is the Stonewall Book Awards, sponsored by the American Library Association’s Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Round Table. Since Isabel Miller’s Patience and Sarah received the first award in 1971, many other books have been honored for exceptional merit relating to the gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender experience.
The Rainbow Book List is a bibliography of books with significant gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or queer/questioning content, which are aimed at youth, birth through age 18. The list is intended to aid youth in selecting high-quality books that were published between July 2015 and December 2016. The list is also intended to aid as a collection development or readers’ advisory tool for librarians serving children and young adults.
The Over the Rainbow List. To recognize current quality non-fiction and fiction books that authentically express gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender experiences.
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BunnyBear / Andrea J. Loney ; pictures by Carmen Saldaña.
Although Bunnybear was born a bear, he feels more like a bunny. He loves to bounce through the forest, wiggle his nose, and munch on strawberries. The other bears don’t understand him, and neither do the bunnies. Will Bunnybear ever find a friend who likes him just the way he is?
A family is a family is a family / written by Sara O’Leary ; illustrated by Qin Leng.
Who are you? : the kid’s guide to gender identity / Brook Pessin-Whedbee ; illustrated by Naomi Bardoff.
What do you like? How do you feel? Who are you? This brightly illustrated children’s book provides a straightforward introduction to gender for anyone aged 5+.
Alan Cole is not a coward / Eric Bell.
Hoping to keep his older brother Nathan silent about his secret crush on another boy at their school, twelve-year-old Alan agrees to a ruthless sibling competition involving nearly impossible tasks–from standing up to their demanding father to getting a first kiss.
Felix Yz / Lisa Bunker.
Thirteen-year-old Felix Yz chronicles the final month before an experimental procedure meant to separate him from the fourth-dimensional creature, Zyx, with whom he was accidentally fused as a young child.
When Mattie is cast as Romeo in an eighth-grade play, she is confused to find herself increasingly attracted to Gemma, a new classmate who is playing Juliet.
Lily Jo McGrother, born Timothy McGrother, is a girl. But being a girl is not so easy when you look like a boy. Especially when you’re in the eighth-grade. Norbert Dorfman, nicknamed Dunkin Dorfman, is bipolar and has just moved from the New Jersey town he’s called home for the past thirteen years. This would be hard enough, but the fact that he is also hiding from a painful secret makes it even worse. One summer morning, Lily Jo McGrother meets Dunkin Dorfman, and their lives forever change.
The gentleman’s guide to vice and virtue / Mackenzi Lee.
Henry “Monty” Montague was bred to be a gentleman. His passions for gambling halls, late nights spent with a bottle of spirits, or waking up in the arms of women or men, have earned the disapproval of his father. His quest for pleasures and vices have led to one last hedonistic hurrah as Monty, his best friend and crush Percy, and Monty’s sister Felicity begin a Grand Tour of Europe. When a reckless decision turns their trip abroad into a harrowing manhunt, it calls into question everything Monty knows, including his relationship with the boy he adores.
As the crow flies / by Melanie Gillman.
When thirteen year-old lesbian African American Charlie questions her belief in God, she spends a week at an all-white Christian youth camp for some soul searching.
At the edge of the universe / Shaun David Huchinson.
When his best friend-turned-boyfriend goes missing and seems to be remembered by nobody else, Ozzie begins to believe that the universe is shrinking and forges ties with a new friend while struggling to figure out what is happening.
Little & lion [electronic resource]. / Brandy Colbert.
A stunning novel on love, loss, identity, and redemption, from Publishers Weekly Flying Start author Brandy ColbertWhen Suzette comes home to Los Angeles from her boarding school in New England, she isn’t sure if she’ll ever want to go back. L.A. is where her friends and family are (along with her crush, Emil). And her stepbrother, Lionel, who has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, needs her emotional support.But as she settles into her old life, Suzette finds herself falling for someone new…the same girl her brother is in love with. When Lionel’s disorder spirals out of control, Suzette is forced to confront her past mistakes and find a way to help her brother before he hurts himself—or worse.
The upside of unrequited / by Becky Albertalli.
Avoiding relationships to protect her sensitive heart, plus-sized Molly supports her once-cynical twin, Cassie, when the latter has her own bout of lovesickness, a situation that is complicated by sibling dynamics and an unexpected romantic triangle.
Far from the tree / Robin Benway.
Robin Benway’s beautiful interweaving story of three very different teenagers connected by blood, explores the meaning of family in all its forms—how to find it, how to keep it, and how to love it.
Life has just become very complicated for seventeen-year-old Katie; her father walked out a year ago, her mother is stressed out, her brother is a “special needs” teenager, and she is caring for the maternal grandmother she has never met, who is suffering from Alzheimer’s–and Katie has a secret of her own that she cannot reveal.
Teenaged Quinn, an aspiring screenwriter, copes with his sister’s death while his best friend forces him back out into the world to face his reality.
In Ontario, Pen is a sixteen-year-old girl who looks like a boy. She’s fine with it, but everyone else is uncomfortable–especially her Portuguese immigrant parents and her manipulative neighbor who doesn’t want her to find a group of real friends.
Hutchinson.Abducted by aliens periodically throughout his youth, Henry Denton is informed by his erstwhile captors that they will end the world in 144 days unless he stops them by deciding that humanity is worth saving.
If I Was Your Girl by Meredith Russo.
Caitlyn Jenner / Carla Mooney.
Countless media outlets reported it: 2015 was the year of identity. And by and large, Caitlyn Jenner was a central figure in forging that dialogue. When she revealed her gender identity as a trans woman, Jenner shocked the public with her frankness, bringing awareness of transgender rights into the public spotlight. This biography tracks the life of one of America’s most beloved athletes and television personalities, putting emphasis on her role as a celebrity advocate for transgender individuals. Sidebars highlight other celebrity figures who paved the way for Jenner and cover important topics such as language sensitivity and transgender suicide rates.
Her body and other parties : stories / Carmen Maria Machado.
Contains short stories about the realities of women’s lives and the violence visited upon their bodies.
The angel of history / Rabih Alameddine.
The Angel of History follows Yemeni-born poet Jacob as he revisits the events of his life, from his maternal upbringing in an Egyptian whorehouse to his adolescence under the aegis of his wealthy father and his life as a gay Arab man in San Francisco at the height of AIDS. Hovered over by the presence of alluring, sassy Satan who taunts Jacob to remember his painful past and dour, frigid Death who urges him to forget and give up on life, Jacob is also attended to by 14 saints.
The ruin of a rake / Cat Sebastian.
Lord Courtenay has been called many things and has never much cared. But after the publication of a salacious novel supposedly based on his exploits, he finds himself shunned from society. Unable to see his nephew, he is willing to do anything to improve his reputation, even if that means spending time with the most proper man in London. Julian Medlock has spent years becoming the epitome of correct behavior. As far as he cares, if Courtenay finds himself in hot water, it’s his own fault for behaving so badly–and being so blasted irresistible. But when Julian’s sister asks him to rehabilitate Courtenay’s image, Julian is forced to spend time with the man he loathes–and lusts after–most. As Courtenay begins to yearn for a love he fears he doesn’t deserve, Julian starts to understand how desire can drive a man to abandon all sense of propriety. But he has secrets he’s determined to keep, because if the truth came out, it would ruin everyone he loves. Together, they must decide what they’re willing to risk for love.
My cat Yugoslavia : a novel / Pajtim Statovci ; translated from the Finnish by David Hackston.
The case of Alan Turing : the extraordinary and tragic story of the legendary codebreaker / drawings by Éric Liberge ; text by Arnaud Delalande ; translated by David Homel.
Lambda Literary Award finalist Alan Turing, subject of the Oscar-winning 2014 film The Imitation Game , was the brilliant mathematician solicited by the British government to help decipher messages sent by Germany’s Enigma machines during World War II. The work of Turing and his colleagues at Hut 8 saved countless lives andmillions’ worth of British goods and merchandise. At the same time, as a homosexual he was forced to lead a tortured, secret life. After a young man stole money from him, he went to the police, where he confessed his homosexuality; he was charged with gross indecency and only avoided prison after agreeing to undergo chemical castration. Tragically, he committed suicide two years later. The particulars of Turing’s achievements were only made known in 2012, following the release of once-classified papers. Authors Liberge and Delalande used this information to create a graphicbiography that is scientifically rigorous yet understandable for the lay reader. Delving deeper into Turing’s life than The Imitation Game , this graphic work is an intimate portrayal of a brilliant gay man living in an intolerant world.
Insomniac City : New York, Oliver, and me / Bill Hayes.
Jane Crow : the life of Pauli Murray / Rosalind Rosenberg.
Throughout her prodigious life, activist and lawyer Pauli Murray systematically fought against all arbitrary distinctions in society, channeling her outrage at the discrimination she faced to make America a more democratic country. In this definitive biography, Rosalind Rosenberg offers apoignant portrait of a figure who played pivotal roles in both the modern civil rights and women’s movements.
The rules do not apply : a memoir / Ariel Levy.
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