In Which Kids Need Diverse Books

I've written about this topic in some fashion before (here, here, and here if you'd like to check it out), but I'm sorry to report that the need to talk about this is perennial. Book bans around the nation still going at full steam. Teachers and librarians are being called groomers for the audacious act of providing kids access to books with queer characters.

Before I go on, I want to apologize to my half dozen regular readers for not fulfilling my promise to blog monthly. A major crisis hit my family not long after the last post. It took up most of my mental energy for the rest of February, all of March, and well into April. I'm just now approaching a new normal and getting back into the things I set aside because they weren't top priority during a crisis.

I do want to note that, when my mental health was at its worst during the epicenter of the crisis, the two best ways to escape were reading and writing. I wasn't able to get in the right frame to work on my adult contemporary romance often, but when I did it, it was refreshing to escape to the world I created for a little while. 

All that taken care of, let's talk again about diverse books and why kids need them. I'm going to keep this simple.

1) Kids that are part of a minority group in some way (BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, neurodivergent, disabled, there's probably more I'm not thinking of) need to see kids like them. They need to see these kids as the heroes of the story. They also need to see them as background characters, just part of a functioning society.

2) Kids that are not part of any minority group, or are part of a group other than the one being represented need to see kids who aren't like them in stories. They need to see that it's not just the white, cishet, able-bodied, neurotypical kids who save the day or just have an every day experience they can relate to. They also need to see kids who are different from them as side characters, just part of a normal, functioning society.

Upper elementary and middle school age kids (you know, the age group middle grade books are written for?) in particular are in a stage in which they're beginning to figure out who they are. My 12yo has three classmates who came out as nonbinary between the end of elementary school and the beginning of middle school. And I'm sure that's just the start of the queer kids she'll meet. Many kids at this age are still figuring out how they identify, who they might want to date, etc. They might not sort themselves out until they're almost done with high school, or even well into adulthood. Heck, I'm 48 and I'm still figuring things out about myself.

But if both cishet kids and queer kids (whether or not they know yet that they're queer) grow up reading a diversity of books that feature a spectrum of queer experiences, we're a whole lot more likely to end up with a loving and accepting society.

Unless you live under a rock and literally never talk to a single kid, the odds are high that you know a queer kid and/or a BIPOC kid, probably a lot more than one of each. But how would I even know that, you ask? You don't need to. If the queer kids in your life see you as a safe person and come out to you, great. But just because none of them have doesn't mean they're not there. Oh, but everyone I know is white, you say. Do you know? Like for real know? Have you asked them all about their racial background? Could they be mixed race and white-appearing? Even if you have defied the odds and somehow really do know only white people, those white kids still need to read books with BIPOC kids.

There are lots of things we as a nation need to do to create a just and safe society for the rising generation and the generations that come after them. I don't know what they all are, and I don't know how to do the majority of them. But what I do know is that one important aspect is giving them the opportunity to read a diversity of books.

I'll end with a picture of my 12yo's graphic novel collection. She's white, and as of this time she identifies as cishet, though that could change as she ages and gets to know herself better. Regardless, her shelves are filled with books about BIPOC kids, books about queer kids, and, yes, books about cishet white kids. Because we don't need to throw anyone under the bus to make bookstore and library shelves reflect the actual world we live in.

In Which It Is Banned Books Week Again

I've posted before (here, here, and here if you want to read) about book bannings and #BannedBooksWeek, but unfortunately the topic is perennial and needs to continue being addressed. Books bannings have continued to increase over the past year. The continued increase in books featuring BIPOC and queer characters seems to really scare certain groups of conservative parents, and those groups know how to organize and how to make a lot of noise.

I have to say I'm a bit disappointed in some of the lists I've seen put out this week featuring banned books. A lot of them are classics (such as Lord of the Flies or To Kill a Mockingbird) or older children's books that were the subject of bans in the past but are overall really well known (such as Harry Potter).

The real danger right now is the hundreds of books that are being quietly removed from classrooms and school libraries because parent groups are challenging them. These groups assert that the very fact that a book stars a BIPOC child and mentions racism means it promotes Critical Race Theory and, even more often, that the very fact that a book features a queer character makes it "pornography". There are picture books being challenged as being "pornographic". Think about that for a minute. 

Unfortunately this phenomenon isn't limited to schools either. A small town in Michigan lost funding for its library in a vote this summer after a conservative group raised concerns that the librarians were "groomers" pushing "pornography" on children. Which is not in any way, shape or form what children's librarians who have books with queer characters in their collections are doing. I've heard anecdotes of Pride month displays in libraries all over the country being tampered with, everything from patrons checking out every single book to keep them out of the hands of children to outright vandalism.

A swift perusal of my shelves and my daughter's shelves produced a pile of middle grade books that I know have been challenged and removed from classrooms and/or libraries along with books I don't know for sure have been challenged but are likely to encounter challenges for the reasons cited above. If I looked for longer I could likely find even more books that commit the apparently grave crime of making children aware that racism still happens and queer people exist.

So, what can you do if you want books like this to get into the hands of readers? On a larger scale, if you know books bans are happening in your community, make your voice known. If your community and/or local school library is open to having the kinds of books that are being banned in its collection, request that they purchase books like this if they have funds to do so. If the library doesn't have the funds and you do, consider donating such books to your local school and/or community library, or to your child's classroom library or the classroom library of a teacher in your circle.

If you're a parent, godparent, aunt or uncle, or otherwise have a role in a child's life that involves buying gifts for them, give them books that have been challenged. There are books with queer and/or BIPOC kids in every genre and you can certainly find a book the child in your life will enjoy. Whether the child in your life will see themself in these books or whether they'll see that kids who are different from them can be heroes it's equally important for them to read these books.

I have a lot of hope that the generation nearing and just entering adulthood is going to bring about a sea change in the way our society sees and treats queer people and people of color. I'm not an idiot. I know there will also be pushback and challenges, but the young people I know give me a lot of hope that we're moving in the right direction and the larger part of their generation will be on the right side of history.

In Which I Gush About Some Queer Middle Grade Books

Before LGBTQIA+ Pride Month ends, I need to get to the post I've been meaning to write recommending some queer MG I've read this summer. First, these books I'm recommending are far from the only ones out there. There's more and more queer kidlit making its way into the world, which is a very good thing. It's a good thing for the queer kids, who are finally able to see themselves in books. It's a good thing for the kids working through their identity to see characters with similar questions. It's also a good thing for cishet kids to see queer kids in the books they read. Both so they understand the struggles those kids can go through and so they see the struggles and joys that are common to all of us, regardless of our sexual and gender identities. Especially in today's climate, when states are passing laws stopping trans kids from getting gender affirming care and/or preventing teachers from talking about LGBTQIA+ people in the classroom, we need to get these books into the hands of kids.  I believe it's my kids' generation that's going to turn the tide and make real progress to stop that toxic heteronormativity of western culture. I still sometimes struggle with "they" as a singular pronoun (even though it's been used in English for hundreds of years to refer to a person whose gender is unknown), but it slips off my kids' tongues naturally. They found out my cousin was gay and marrying another man and they were like, "Hope they have a great marriage." A teen at our church came out as nonbinary, started using they/them pronouns, and changed their preferred name, and my kids along with all the kids in the youth group just rolled with it, even though our church is on the conservative end of the UMC spectrum.

First up in my rundown is Michael Leali's lovely contemporary debut, The Civil War of Amos Abernathy. The writing and narrative style themselves are worthy of note. MC Amos' voice is classic middle grade and a treasure trove for a writer wanting to learn how to master voice. The novel is written alternating Amos' letters to a Civil War soldier who would likely have identified as a trans man if he had lived today with a present tense narrative covering one important day. The narrative combined with the letters slowly reveal what's happening and how important it is for Amos and his community. Amos has spent most of his life volunteering at a living history park of which his mom is the director. He has been out as a gay boy since elementary school, and he suddenly realizes in seventh grade that there are no queer people portrayed at the LHP. Along with his best friend and a new friend on whom he's developed a crush, he goes searching for queer people in the 19th century, including one I won't name who will likely surprise you. Amos' new friend and crush is from a conservative Christian family and he struggles with his feelings for Amos because he's been told his whole life that they're wrong. One thing I especially love about this book as a queer identifying and LGBTQIA+ affirming Christian myself is that Amos' family are also faithful churchgoers. They just attend a different, open and affirming church. So often religious characters in queer novels are painted exclusively as bigots, or at best as people who are reluctantly accepting but not happy about it. While that is absolutely the case for a portion of people of faith, that doesn't describe anywhere near all of us and I was glad to see both sides shown in this novel.

In the Key of Us by Miriam J. Lockington gives us two queer Black girls experiencing first love at a prestigious music summer camp. I know from twitter interactions with the author that the camp was inspired by a camp that my brother attended for many years and, based on what I know of it from him, the portrayal of the environment at a camp like that was pretty spot on. In addition to giving us a sweet first love story between two girls, this books addresses what it's like to be a BIPOC in a heavily white environment. It also tackles issues of grief, guilt, self-harm, and family pressure. Told in dual POV, this book and is thoughtful and tackles important issues without feeling like a heavy "issue book".

The Mirrorwood by Deva Fagan is a secondary world fantasy loosely inspired by the story of Sleeping Beauty. While the MC, Fable, is cishet, I believe it deserves a mention in a rundown of queer kidlit because the world Fagan has created is queernormative. Fable has a nonbinary sibling who uses they/them pronouns and this is not in any way remarkable. Families with two dads and two moms are mentioned in the villages Fable visits as a matter of course. In the world created for this book, being queer is just a part of some people's identity. There's no indication that they encounter prejudice or pushback of any kind. Both queer kids and cishet kids (and adults!) can benefit from seeing a world like this.

If forced to name the queer MG book I read this summer that's the most important, it would have to be David Levithan's Answers in the Pages. It's a short little book (I read it in one afternoon) following a boy whose mom starts a campaign to have a book his teacher (who is gay) assigns based on one sentence at the end about the two boys in the book loving each other. The MC's story is interspersed with chapters from the (made up) book showing just how incredibly innocuous and age appropriate the book is. A third narrative, which seems to sit apart from the other two until they all dovetail at the end, follows two junior high boys whose friendship is growing into a mutual crush, and who aren't sure how to handle their feelings for each other. This book resonated with me as a parent because, when my 17yo was in elementary school, my reaction to a book with two boys who might be in love with each other would have been closer to the MC's mom's reaction than I would like to admit to myself. I don't think I would have moved to have such a book removed from the classroom, but I would have been uncomfortable with it and would have at least thought internally along the lines of the argument his mom gives. She's not portrayed as a bigot who hates all gay people. She just has an idea that kids don't need to think about their sexuality until at least high school and for that reason it will just confuse them to have gay people mentioned in books they read in elementary school. That's a pretty common view for Gen Xers and millenials who are the parents of kids in school right now. We were never exposed to gay characters in books until high school at the very earliest and it can feel weird to us for our kids to read the books available now. Yes, some of the people (maybe even most of the people) moving to ban books really are hateful bigots. Others are like the MC's mom, people who have a generational misunderstanding of what kids can "handle" in the books they read, and whose minds can be changed (as this mom's mind is) when they stop to really listen to the other side.

I hope you'll pick up some of these books if you haven't read them and consider passing them on to the children in your life. If you have other great queer kidlit recs, I'd love to hear about them in the comments.

In Which I Reflect on Book Bans

There's been a lot of outrage in the press and on social media lately about the removal of the holocaust centered graphic novel, Maus by Art Spiegelman, from the 8th grade curriculum in McMinn County, Tennessee because it was determined to be inappropriate due to "nudity and profane language". Given that the "nudity" cited is nude mice and the profanity is fairly tame and nothing the average 8th grader wouldn't have heard before, it's pretty clearly posturing on the part of the district. The district did later release a statement saying that they do believe it's important for students to learn about the holocaust and that they were looking for a more "age appropriate" book to use. Since the unit was reportedly coming up soon, unfortunately what's most likely to happen this year is that the holocaust unit will be cancelled. But even if it's continued with a more "age appropriate" text, the probability is that whatever text is chosen won't convey the horrors of the holocaust the way the true story of a holocaust survivor does. While I love historical fiction and think it's a good gateway to introduce the topic of the holocaust to younger children, the fact is too much of it either doesn't touch on the worst parts (such as Anne Frank's diary, which ends before the was captured and sent to a concentration camp) or focuses on the heroism of gentiles (such as Lois Lowry's Number the Stars). I love both of the mentioned books and am not saying kids shouldn't read them, but that can't be where the lesson stops, particularly not for older students. 

Some people try to give book removals and bans a positive twist, saying that kids will for sure want to read a book that's been banned and will run out to buy it or check it out of the public library. This may happen with a few kids, but the fact is that the majority of kids either won't be inspired to read a banned book or might want to but won't have access to it. Eighth graders are 13 or 14. They can't get to a library or bookstore on their own, and they most often don't have their own money. If their parents don't want them reading Maus, they won't get access to it.

While the removal of Maus has gotten a lot of attention, it's just one example of a nationwide trend of books being banned or just quietly removed from classrooms, school libraries, and even some public libraries. The most commonly banned/removed books are those written by BIPOC and/or queer authors featuring BIPOC and/or queer kids. Just glancing through my 11yo's bookshelf, I found three books that I know have been the subject of bans. In some cases the authors have had school visits booked and had the visits cancelled last minute because parents protested.

In these cases as well, some misinformed people are saying that authors should see the bans as a badge of honor and saying that bans only increase sales. The problem is, while bans might give an author a slight bump in sales, those sales will be to adults and are unlikely to get the books in the hands of the kids who really need them. For most of history, children's books featured white cishet kids almost exclusively. On the rare occasion the protagonist wasn't white, the author usually was. While the representation is still far from even, now more and more books about BIPOC kids written by BIPOC authors are being published. Some, like Jerry Craft's New Kid, which won a Newbery, are even winning major awards. However, that does not make them immune to being challenged. New Kid, along with a huge number of other books starring Black kids, is being challenged around the nation as part of the push against "critical race theory" being taught in public schools. Which is so far off the mark it would be laughable if it weren't so serious. The two other books pictured, Drama by Raina Telgemeier and The Insiders by Mark Oshiro, have been challenged because they feature queer characters, which, in the view of some parents, makes them "inappropriate" at best and "pornographic" at worst. A list of books removed for review in one school district over potential "pornographic" content includes picture books about transgender children.

For authors, these bans are bad for a few reasons. First of all, many queer and BIPOC writers decided to write for children specifically because they didn't see kids like them in books growing up and they wanted to give that experience to children. More practically, these bans are causing income loss for authors. Not only are fewer books selling because schools can't buy them, but the authors either aren't scheduling school visits or are having already booked visits cancelled. School visits are often a huge part of the income of children's writers.

Most important, I think, is the effect these bans have on children. For some kids, especially those in low income areas, the classroom and school library are the places they have access to books. It's incredibly valuable for these kids to read books whose heroes look like them. Queer kids from conservative families can be particularly hurt. Some school librarians report kids reading books during library time that their parents would never allow them to bring home. These kids might know they're gay or transgender and not feel safe telling their families, or they might be starting to ask questions about gender identity and sexuality that they don't feel they can ask at home. Books featuring queer kids can be a literal lifesaver for these kids, who sadly have a higher suicide rate than the general population.

Even for white, cishet kids, reading books about BIPOC and queer kids is incredibly valuable. They need to know that these kids exist, that they can be heroes of fantastical adventures or, alternatively, that they also have normal lives and normal kid problems and really aren't so different after all. Kids from Christian families need to see Muslim kids, Jewish kids, and kids from other minority religions in the books they read.

So far, book bans have not reached my district. I'm blessed to live in an area that's pretty progressive for Kentucky, and our district has been headed by a Black superintendent for the past six years, which I think is likely to ward off books being removed under a false charge of teaching "critical race theory". That doesn't mean my district is definitely safe, though, and I'm prepared to challenge the school board if the bans make their way here. In the meantime, I'm doing my part to see that my white, Christian, cishet (at least as far as I know) fifth grader reads books starring all kind of kids and not just kids that look like her and believe the things she believes.

In Which I Reflect on Books as Mirrors and Windows

 For a really long time, nearly all books were written by white men, or white women who were pretending to be white men. Eventually things opened up a bit and it became acceptable for women to write books, especially children's books. Still, the overwhelming majority of these writers were white.

Even now that publishing is making moves to put out more books by diverse writers, there's still pushback. Recently, Newbery Award winner Jerry Craft was uninvited from a school because someone decided that his book New Kid, which tells the story of a Black boy at a mostly white private school, teaches critical race theory. Think about that. The very fact that a book chronicles the experiences of a Black boy makes it offensive.

A library system is currently the subject of community protest and demands that its funding be revoked after it shared a Facebook post publicizing its LGBTQIA+ children's collection. If parents don't want their kids to read books with queer content that's one thing. I think it's unfortunate, but it's not my job to control the choices of other parents. But attempting to push their views on a library system and get its funding pulled is another thing altogether.

Even when there's no protest around books by BIPOC and queer writers and about BIPOC and queer kids, too many people often assume that those books are only for kids who identify with those groups. Librarians and teachers might recommend New Kid to Black students but not to white students. Or if they know one of their students identifies as nonbinary they might point them to a book about a nonbinary kid. But if a kid is cisgender, why would they need to read that book?

I'll tell you why. Because books don't need to only serve as mirrors. There still aren't nearly enough, but there are more and more books being published starring the kinds of kids who didn't see themselves in books for most of history. But even white, abled, cishet kids need to read books by kids who are different from them. Because the more we read about people different from us, the more likely we are to accept them.

I only lightly police what my 10yo daughter reads. She's not ready for heavy romance or violence, for instance, so I won't let her read The Hunger Games even though she has friends who has read it. But she's read a lot of books (including New Kid) that feature kids who are different from her. Black kids, queer kids, poor kids, immigrant kids. I could go on. This has given her an understanding that not everyone is like her and that's okay. When a teen from our church came out as nonbinary this year, my daughter didn't bat an eye. She doesn't have any peers that identify as nonbinary, but she was familiar with the concept because she'd read about it.

I'm excited about new books coming out that will continue to expand the number of kids who can see themselves in books as in a mirror and the number of kids who can look through a window at someone who's different from them and recognize that they might not be that different after all.

Just for fun, I'll end with a couple pictures. I recently rearranged my bookshelves. I'd been putting books in randomly wherever I could cram them in. The end result was that I might have to visit four different bookcases and two different floors of my house to find all the books in a single series. Now the books are categorized (but not alphabetized, that's way too much order for my ADHD brain) and all the series books are back with their friends.

I knew middle grade fantasy was my greatest love, but I didn't know just how much it outweighed all the other books I own. The two pictures below show my three shelves worth. Poor MG contemporary only takes up part of one shelf. And mystery is a lonely four book collection. All of middle grade fares better than adult, however. In all categories that takes up exactly two shelves. You might look at my shelves and think I'm a parent of voracious readers, but, no, I'm just a middle grade writer.

In Which It Is Banned Books Week

 This is Banned Books Week, and, wow, it's amazing to reflect on the number of books that have been banned for a wide variety of reasons. Here's a partial list of books that have been banned in the U.S.

For the record, I've read 18 of the 25 on this list. A decent number of them hadn't yet been written during my childhood. The others I haven't read in some cases because they're not interesting to me and in other cases because I've heard good things about them but simply haven't gotten around to reading them. I read mostly middle grade fiction after all, and there's a lot on this list that's not in that category.

There are, of course, a lot more books that have been banned, either on a wide scale or just by a particular school library or city library system. 

I kind of sort of understand some of the rationale behind banning books. There are some books that really would be unhealthy for some kids to read at particular times in their lives. There are some books that kids don't have the maturity to understand. For instance, I wouldn't let my 9 year old read The Hate U Give or Lord of the Flies. Those are great books for an adolescent to read, but I don't think she's emotionally or intellectually ready for them.  Right at this moment she wants to read The Hunger Games, but I've told her she has to wait until at least middle school. I just don't think a 4th grader is ready to read a series centered around teenagers in a dystopian society being forced to kill each other on live television.

There are book on this list, such as The Handmaid's Tale, that I wouldn't even let my 15 year old read. I'll certainly recommend it to him when he's an adult, but I don't personally think it's something he needs to read before he's 18. Another parent might feel differently, and that's okay. 

That leads me to my point. I believe the only people who should normally have authority over a child's reading habits are loving parents. In the best case scenario, parents know their children, their maturity level, their life circumstances, and why or why not a book would be good for them to read.

Before you come at me for this, yes, I'm aware that this isn't always an ideal situation. Not all kids live in loving homes with parents who care about what effect the books they read have on their emotional health. Not all loving parents are equipped to determine which books would be good for their kids to read. Perhaps the parents are immigrants and don't read well in the language of the country they live in. Perhaps the parents were badly served by the educational system and don't read well themselves. Maybe the kid knows it, maybe they've done a stellar job of hiding it. But either way they may not feel qualified to decide what their child should read.

In these cases, I do think it's sometimes appropriate for a teacher or a school or community librarian to point kids toward books that would be good for them and recommend against books that wouldn't be good for them. I think this needs to be approached as gently as possible, saying something like, "You know, I think you'll appreciate The Hunger Games much more when you're in middle school. Maybe you'd like to try [insert adventurous middle grade book this kid might like here].

What I don't think is appropriate for parents, and especially not for librarians, is to say no to a book because someone somewhere finds it offensive, because they personally don't agree with the message, because they think it's gross or immature, and so on.

There are a lot of good books out there. No person is going to like all of them. You will undoubtedly find some of them really offensive. However, I don't think that gives you the right to play gatekeeper and stop everyone else from reading them.