Month / May 2023

by booksoverlookedblog

Read with Pride: June Book Recommendations

Before we get into June’s book recommendations, I just want to let everyone know that there won’t be a book list for July, and possibly not one for August. As a children’s librarian, summer is my busiest time of the year. Much as I wanted to create a book recommendation list for every month this year, I’m a little overwhelmed right now and it’s just not in the cards. 

June is my favorite month for many reasons: my birthday, the start of summer, and many good memories I have of school ending. June is also  Pride Month! First established in 1999, Pride Month commemorates the 1969 Stonewall Riots that are often used to mark the beginning of the gay rights movement in the United States. LGBTQIA+ rights have come a long way since then, but it is still an uphill battle, particularly for the trans and nonbinary community. 

I live in Florida, which has passed extreme anti-LGBTQIA+ laws, including the infamous “Don’t Say Gay” law (which recently was extended to eighth grade); HB 1521, which regulates bathroom use; and SB 245, which bans gender-affirming care for trans minors and allows the state to remove children from their families if they receive gender-affirming care.  The Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBTQIA+ group in the U.S., has even issued a travel advisory for  individuals traveling to Florida.

I am obviously disgusted and enraged by the bigotry and cruelty present in these new laws, and my heart breaks for the trans and nonbinary community. I often feel frustrated and small, and that there should have been something more I could have done to stop this from happening. 

One way I can fight back is through my job. I’m a public librarian, which means that (for now) I don’t have the same restrictions on talking about gender and orientation as school staff do. At the time of this writing, public libraries also don’t have the same restrictions on what books people can have access to. I take my job very seriously. I feel that I have a responsibility to help fill the gaps that kids and teens no longer have easy access to. 

I do a lot of the ordering for YA books at my library, and I’m really pleased to see that there is a lot more LGBTQIA+ representation than there has been in the past. Certainly much more than when I was a teen, and more positive representation as well! Queer and non-binary characters are no longer relegated to being one-off jokes, side-kicks, or dying gruesomely, but are fully realized characters whose orientation or gender identity does not define them. 

There are still many areas where LGBTQIA+ fiction is lacking. For example, I’ve come across way more books about trans boys than trans girls, and very few books have asexual characters as the lead. Also, the majority of LGBTQIA+ fiction I come across is contemporary romance. I think all of these things will improve with time, but it’s the last one I want to talk about right now. There’s nothing wrong with contemporary romance, of course, though it’s not my favorite thing to read. There still isn’t a large amount LGBTQIA+ representation in genre fiction (though it’s improving!), which is disappointing. Queer and nonbinary individuals should still be able to see themselves in their favorite genres – historical, fantasy, sci-fi…and yes, even contemporary romance, if you insist. 

For the fiction half of this list, I’m focusing on genre fiction. Because you know what’s better than two boys finding true love? Two boys finding true love IN SPACE!

Nonfiction

This Book is Gay by Juno Dawson

This Book is Gay has the honor of being one of the most challenged books in the U.S. for two years running, for “LGBTQIA+ content” and “providing sex education.” Dawson’s book seeks to educate both queer and straight teens on same-sex relationships, including the physical aspects of those relationships. But sex is far from the only thing this book covers. It’s got everything from coming out, dating apps, discussions of queer culture, and the downsides of being LGBTQIA+. The breezy, upbeat writing is frequently witty and always informative, and black and white cartoons add humor into even the hardest topics the book covers, like harassment and discrimination. But I honestly can’t describe this book any better than the summary itself: “There’s a long-running joke that, after coming out as a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or intersex person, you should receive a membership card and instruction manual. This is that instruction manual. You’re welcome.” 

The Invisible Orientation: An Introduction to Asexuality by Julie Sondra Decker

While there is much better queer representation in the media today, asexuality is an orientation that often gets left out. It’s also frequently misunderstood, or treated as a joke. Because of this, it can be difficult for someone on the asexual spectrum to understand their orientation or have it be taken seriously.  It can be a huge relief to find the right word to describe yourself, and know that you’re not the only one who feels this way. The Invisible Orientation discusses asexuality and other ace-spectrum orientations, while emphasizing fluidity and that asexuality can change over time. It also addresses myths about asexuality, that being asexual is healthy and not the result of a physical or mental illness, and includes a chapter for friends and family of asexual people. I’ve known for awhile now that I’m on the ace spectrum, and while the label doesn’t matter to me much anymore, seeing myself in this book made me feel validated in a way I’d never been. 

Say it with me: we’re here, we’re queer, we don’t wanna touch your rear!

Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe

You’ve probably heard of Gender Queer before: maybe because it’s a Stonewall Honor Book, or maybe because it’s been the most frequently challenged book in the U.S. for the past two years. Gender Queer is a graphic novel that chronicles Maia Kobabe’s (e/eir/em) journey from childhood to adulthood, as e discovers eirself as nonbinary and asexual. The book starts in Maia’s childhood, and covers eir confusion about eir orientation, gender identity, and dating. Even after Maia discovers that e is gender queer, eir journey continues with coming out to friends and family, changing pronouns, and coming into eir own as a nonbinary person. This is a great choice for older teens and adults who are nonbinary, or seek to understand what it means to be nonbinary. 

The 57 Bus by Dashka Slater

Richard and Sasha’s paths probably would have never crossed if not for the 57 bus, which runs between Sasha’s middle class home Oakland’s foothills, and Richard’s crime-riddled community in the flatlands. Agender teen Sasha fell asleep on the bus, and woke to find their skirt in flames. The fire was set by Richard, and left Sasha with severe burns. Sasha’s recovery would require a lengthy hospital stay, multiple surgeries, and months of follow-up treatments. Richard was arrested and charged with two felonies and two hate crimes, potentially facing life in prison. The 57 Bus tells both Sasha’s and Richard’s stories: Sasha’s love of language and all things Russian, discovering their gender identity, and life after a devastating attack; Richard as a troubled kid trying to turn his life around, despite many obstacles. The book examines prejudice, discrimination, and even danger faced by  individuals, as well as the injustices of the juvenile justice system. 

Queerstory: An Infographic History of the Fight for LGBTQ+ Rights, published by Tiller Press, with forward by Linda Riley.

Queer history in the United States didn’t begin with Stonewall, and it didn’t end with the legalization of same-sex marriage. You can find a number of books about LGBTQIA+ history – especially if you’re looking for information about Stonewall or the AIDS Crisis – but sometimes it’s hard to know where to start. If you’re just looking for a quick overview of the LGBTQIA+ rights movement, a jumping-off point for more in-depth learning, or a very colorful way to learn queer history, then Queerstory will not disappoint. Loaded with illustrations, timelines, brief biographies, and facts, Queerstory presents LGBTQIA+ history in a visually appealing and digestible way. While not as in-depth as other books on queer history, the colorful presentation and infographic format add a splash of fun into what is often a weighty topic.

Fiction

Summer Bird Blue by Akemi Dawn Bowman

Lea wasn’t just Rumi’s sister. Lea was Rumi’s best friend, the other half of her soul. Writing songs with her was one of the greatest joys of Rumi’s life. Lea understood Rumi in a way that no one else did, like how Rumi felt left behind when her friends started dating and she just doesn’t understand why romance has to be such a big deal for everyone but her. When Lea is killed in an accident, Rumi is lost, unsure of what to do with her life without her sister in it. Her distant mother, consumed by grief, sends Rumi from their home in Washington to live with her aunt in Hawaii. Rumi navigates her grief, survivor’s guilt, and deep rage over her sister’s death and mother’s abandonment, while trying to understand her asexuality and complete the last song she and Lea would ever write together. At first, she wants nothing to do with Hawaii or her new neighbors – Kai, the cheerful boy next door, and the curmudgeonly Mr. Watanabe. But maybe, with their help, she can find her way back to the music that she once loved so much. 

Dreadnought by April Daniels

Danny Tozer has known for a long time that she’s a girl, even if she has a boy’s body. She’s afraid to come out as trans, but her secret’s out when the world’s greatest superhero, Dreadnought, falls out of the sky. Dying, Dreadnought transfers his superpowers to Danny, giving her super strength, flight, and the body she always wanted. Transitioning suddenly and gaining superpowers makes life a little complicated: Danny’s vitriolic and verbally abusive father is looking for a way to “cure” her; the Legion Pacifica of superheroes are in disagreement if Danny should be the new Dreadnought; even Danny’s best friend has abandoned her. “Caping” with fellow superhero Calamity helps Danny escape from her civilian troubles. The girls start small, but Danny is determined to track down Utopia, the super villain who killed Dreadnought. Danny doesn’t feel that she deserves the gift that he gave her, and this is how she can repay him. Yet as her journey as a trans girl and a superhero go on, she comes to understand that she deserves Dreadnought’s mantle – and more – as much as he did. 

Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Melinda Lo

It’s 1954, and seventeen-year-old Lily struggles to find a place where she belongs. While other girls her age are worrying about boys, Lily instead dreams of working at the Jet Propulsion Lab, like her aunt. She and her classmate Kath connect over an ad for a male impersonator at the lesbian bar, The Telegraph Club, and both girls’ lives are forever changed.  Lily gradually realizes she is a lesbian and falls in love with Kath, but following her heart is a huge risk. McCarthyism is in full-swing, and Chinese-Americans like Lily and her family could face deportation if they are accused of being Communist sympathizers. Being a lesbian only adds to the danger.  Lily learns how to switch between ostensibly straight, Chinatown Lily and Telegraph Club Lily. But when the two halves of her life collide, she will have a difficult choice to make that will change everything. 

The Darkness Outside Us by Eliot Schrefer

Ambrose Cusk wakes to find himself in space, but he has no memory of a launch. Apparently, he was injured in an accident at launch and has been in a coma for weeks. Even so, Ambrose remembers his mission clearly: he is being sent to Saturn’s moon, Titan, to rescue his sister. He’s also surprised to find that he is not alone on the ship. Spacefarer Kodiak Celius is from Demokratia, the country locked in a cold war with Ambrose’s home country, Federacion. At first Kodiak keeps his distance, but Ambrose gradually draws him out of his chosen seclusion. As their journey progresses, both boys discover that there’s something sinister happening on board. Why can’t they get in touch with mission control? Is the ship’s AI telling them the truth about Ambrose’s sister? These two sworn enemies must work together to discover the deadly secrets being kept hidden from them, at the same time coming to understand each other in the stark isolation of outer space. 

On a personal note, I recommend that you don’t read this on your lunch break at work. Once your break is over you’ll have to go back to work and try to be normal and not act like you’ve just been emotionally destroyed at the hands of a paperback. 

The Sunbearer Trials by Aiden Thomas

In the beginning, Sol and Tierra made the gods: the “powerful but vain” Golds, the “kind but focused” Jades, and the “passionate but selfish” Obsidians. But Sol and Tierra loved humans the most, and the jealous Obsidians turned them into mindless slaves. Sol sacrificed their body to protect humans, leaving the Sun Stones behind. Every ten years, the Sunbearer Trials are held, in which the children of the gods, or semidioses, compete to be chosen as the Sunbearer who will rekindle the Sun Stones. The loser of the trials has the dubious honor of being sacrificed to fuel them for another decade. Teo, the trans son of the goddess of birds, has no interest in the Trials. As a Jade surrounded by more talented Gold peers, he’s certain he’ll never be picked. But he and his best friend, Niya, must both compete against each other in the Trials, alongside Aurelio, Teo’s old friend turned enemy. Then there’s Xio, the thirteen-year-old trans son of the god of bad luck. No matter the outcome, Teo and Niya are determined to protect Xio from being sacrificed. The Hunger Games meets Mexican mythology in a lush, queer positive fantasy.

by booksoverlookedblog

#1000BlackGirlBooks: Hallway Diaries

Now that I’ve finished my exploration into the NYT best seller’s list, I’ll be going back to some of my regular content. I still have posts drafted for #1000BlackGirlBooks and Books I Didn’t Pick, and I have a few other book reviews planned as well.

But for now, let’s pick up where we left off with Hallway Diaries.

Hallway Diaries is composed of three novellas, each of which stars a Black girl in high school. Friendships, romance, and drama are inevitable in these slice-of-life stories. It was published in 2007 by Kimani TRU, and imprint of Harlequin Enterprises. The front page welcomes us:

Dear reader,

What you’re holding is very special. Something fresh, new, and true to your unique experience as a young African-American! We are proud to introduce a new fiction imprint–Kimani TRU. You’ll find Kimani TRU speaks to the triumphs, problems and concerns of today’s black teens with candor, wit, and realism. The stories are told from your perspective and in your voice.

But before we get into each of them, I want to talk about the physical book itself. I know, I know, we’re not supposed to judge books by their covers, but that’s exactly what I’m about to do.

I want to start with the back of the book, which has summaries for each of the three stories.

How To Be Down by Felicia Pride When Nina Parker decides to straighten her Afro, lose her valley-girl accent and get a total makeover for her new school in the hood, the cutest guy notices—yes! But so does the meanest girl, Vivica, queen bee of her crew, who wants Jeffrey for herself.

Double Act by Debbie Rigaud

In the hood, Mia Chambers is ‘the smart girl,’ but at her prestigious new prep school she hardly stands out. So Mia does what it takes— only to be accused of selling out by her old friends!

The Summer She Learned To Dance by Karen Valentin

At first, Giselle Johnson hates spending the summer with her cousin from the Dominican Republic. But she soon starts loving the island and even learns to dance to her own rhythm. That is, until her cousin attracts Giselle’s high school crush…

These descriptions make these novellas sound like “mean girl” stories, but that’s a big misrepresentation of what they actually are. Take the summary for How to be Down. It sounds like two girls fighting for the affection of a boy. That is part of the story – but not the whole thing. It’s really a story about Nina trying to fit in at a new school, and Vivica’s insecurities about her own racial identity. I can only assume that these descriptions were written to attract readers to buy the book, even if it’s misleading.

Now I want to talk about the cover.

I don’t think that these models are meant to represent any of the characters in the books, but I noticed something: everyone has relatively light skin on the cover, even the Black models. And I think that’s a bit weird, considering the publisher is trying to give Black teens stories that feel authentic and relevant to their lives.

To be honest, this is something I probably wouldn’t have noticed until a couple years ago. Today, I can see that it smacks of colorism.

Colorism is, essentially, a preference for people with lighter-colored skin, even among BIPOC. The term has been made more mainstream in the past couple years, especially following the release of the film In the Heights. The movie was criticized for featuring mainly light-skin Latinx actors, and not being representative of the Afro-Latinx community.

Colorism wasn’t something that was even on my radar for a long time, but once you start noticing it, you can’t stop. You can see it everywhere, from advertisements to entertainment, and, of course, book covers. This is not to say that Hallway Diaries is a bad book. But the cover, like the summaries, is misrepresentative of the book itself. I think both the back and front covers were deliberately misleading to sell more copies. It makes sense from a marketing standpoint, but it does annoy me. For anyone actually looking for mean girl love triangle stories, the reality of this book could be a huge disappointment.

But we’re not here to judge books solely on their covers (and/or marketing strategies), so let’s get into the novellas themselves. I’ll start off with a few more accurate summaries:

How To Be Down by Felicia Pride: Nina has just moved from her mostly-White hometown to Baltimore. She has a frenemy in Vivica, who calls Nina a White girl in a Black girl’s body. Vivica is insecure in her own racial identity, as she is half-Black, and half-Latinx. Tensions between Nina and Vivica explode during a school slam poetry competition.

Double Act by Debbie Rigaud: Mia leaves her old school and beloved Double-Dutch team to transfer to a new, mostly White high school. She struggles to fit in, but when she feels like she finally has a place, her old friends accuse her of forgetting where she comes from.

The Summer She Learned How to Dance by Karen Valentin: Giselle wants to connect with her late mother’s side of the family but isn’t sure how. She finally gets her chance when her cousin, Juanita, comes from the Dominican Republic to visit for the summer. However, Giselle finds Juanita embarrassing and wants nothing to do with her.

As I read these novellas, a common theme emerged: duality. I mentioned this a bit in my post about The Hate U Give, in which the protagonist often feels like she’s living in two different worlds.

In each of these stories, the girls find themselves being pulled in two different directions when life deals them an unexpected hand. All three have happy endings: Nina and Vivica learn to love themselves as they are; Mia manages to play piano in the school play and jump in the final Double-Dutch competition; Giselle embraces her cousin and learns more about herself and her family.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with happy endings like this. These were just light, fun stories and the message works for any teenagers reading them, particularly girls. To thine own self be true, make new friends but keep the old, be open-minded and you’ll be rewarded.

However, race can’t be ignored in these novellas. Boiling them down to a few pithy morals cheapens the meaning of the stories. The girls in these stories go through things most teenagers do: they need to figure out who they are in changing circumstances. This is hard enough, but they also must incorporate their racial identity into this journey of self-discovery.

Which brings me to my next point: the importance of representation.

When I was an teenager asking myself, “who am I?” I never had to worry if I was acting “White enough” or felt like I had to represent my race. Growing up, almost everyone I knew was White, and I never was made to feel like I didn’t belong among my classmates or relatives because of my race. Why would I, when almost all of us were the same race?

While I’ve known for a long time that representation in media was important, I rarely felt the impact when a show or a movie lacked diversity. Sure, I’d get annoyed at the way women were often treated in movies and TV shows, but I didn’t really understand on an emotional level the importance of representation for other minority groups.

Then I started playing a game called 2064: Read Only Memories. It’s a point-and-click cyberpunk adventure game, where you play as a journalist who teams up with the world’s first A.I., Turing. I was pretty excited when I started playing and saw that you could pick your character’s pronouns. Not just she/her, he/him, they/them, but also pronouns like zi/zie, hir, ve/ver, and many others that I had never heard of before. Early on in the game you’re introduced to your sister’s ex, who is another woman. One of my favorite characters in the game was TOMCAT, who goes by they/them. They majority of the characters, from main characters to minor ones, were queer, non-binary, or both. I have no problem with that — I thought it was really cool that there was a game that featured so many characters who ran the gamut of genders and sexualities.

But as I played through the game, I found myself getting weirdly annoyed. I caught myself thinking, “Isn’t there just one cishet character?!”

With a shock, I realized that this must be what queer and non-binary people feel like all the time.

I’ve had other moments like that since, but that was the first, and it was eye-opening. Like with colorism, once you start noticing the importance of representation in media, you can’t un-notice it. I remember working with a group of middle school girls talking about The Force Awakens, excited to finally see a woman as a Jedi. A friend of mine who’s a first generation immigrant who never saw herself represented in media until she heard “Breathe” from In the Heights. Another friend who’s bisexual and was excited to see that Disney’s Loki is, too.

I’m really glad that there is more representation for BIPOC and LGBTQAI+ individuals. I also think that there’s still a great deal of work to do in that regard, especially when it comes to representing people with disabilities, along with religious diversity. However, I’m so excited to see books, TV shows, and movies with a diverse cast of characters. We’ve come a long way – and we’ve got a long way to go still.

Now, I’ve got to be honest about one thing: I didn’t really like Hallway Diaries. Someone my age wasn’t the target audience, but even as a teen, I wouldn’t have had much interest in it. Teen drama just isn’t my thing, even when I was a teenager. However, I hope that this book, and others from Kimani TRU found the right person for them. I hope there are teenage girls out there who read this book, and other books like it, and finally felt seen.