This is our Pride Issue, and proud we are to be highlighting some truly great recent LGBTQ–themed books in it. A picture-book biography that acknowledges in the primary text that its subject was bisexual? Cool. An animal new-sibling book that takes place in the home of an interracial same-sex female couple? Fabulous. The first traditionally published picture book about a trans boy—a biracial child of color at that? Hurrah! Five other new books on queer topics? Great, great, great, great, great.
To be sure, these are not the only recent titles worthy of celebration, and there are more coming soon. In this issue, we review Billie Jean!, by Mara Rockliff and illustrated by Elizabeth Baddeley, a picture-book biography of the tennis great. It stops before King came out, but that fact is acknowledged straightforwardly in a biographical note. We also review Ghost’s Journey, a picture book by Robin Stevenson about a real-life gay Indonesian couple who immigrated to Canada to escape persecution. Just last issue, we reviewed What Riley Wore, by Elana K. Arnold and illustrated by Linda Davick, about a comfortably gender-nonconforming child. All will hit shelves in August.
To have three queer-themed books aimed at a child audience coming out in one month is a huge improvement over not so long ago, when just one or two might come out in a year—and that would have been a mighty good year.
But life just over the children/YA divide is so much richer for readers searching for LGBTQ mirrors and windows. You can read more about the specifics in my colleague Laura Simeon’s column. But there, intersectionality abounds, as do books with multiple LGBTQ characters. With a few notable exceptions, the few LGBTQ characters in picture books and books for middle graders tend not to share the complexity of their cousins in YA or, crucially, their real-world counterparts.
I hope I’m saying something different in next year’s Pride Issue column. Vicky Smith is the children’s editor.
