June Is LGBTQ Pride Month: Celebrate Diversity with a Great Read!

This is the final month for the Fine Print Blog, so this will be my last post. Thanks for reading!

June is LGBTQ pride month!  Read one of the following award winners or nominees:

Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli--Sixteen-year-old, not-so-openly-gay Simon is blackmailed into playing wingman for his classmate or else his sexual identity—and that of his pen pal—will be revealed.

Fire Shut Up in My Bones by Charles M. Blow--A gorgeous, moving memoir of how one of America's most innovative and respected journalists found his voice by coming to terms with a painful past.

Second Avenue Caper by Joyce Brabner--A graphic novel of the true story of a tight-knit group of artists and activists living in New York City in the early 1980s who found themselves on the front lines in the fight against AIDS.

The Gay Revolution: the Story for the Struggle... by Lillian Faderman--The sweeping story of the modern struggle for gay, lesbian, and trans rights—from the 1950s to the present—based on amazing interviews with members of the entire LGBT community.

Modern Families: Stories of Extraordinary... by Joshua Gamson--The kinds of families we see today are different than they were even a decade ago, some fantastically so, as paths to parenthood have been rejiggered by technology, activism, and law.  

George by Alex Gino--Knowing herself to be a girl despite her outwardly male appearance, George is denied a female role in the class play before teaming up with a friend to reveal her true self.

End of Eve by Ariel Gore--The author's life is turned upside down when her mentally ill mother reveals she is dying, and she moves from Portland to New Mexico to care for her.

Moon Over Tangier by Janice Law--In colonial Morocco, a painter navigates a conspiracy of forgery, corruption, and murder.

The Gracekeepers by Kirsty Logan--A shore side burial coordinator who lives in self-enforced exile as penance for a long-ago mistake and a performer with a floating circus face unexpected life changes and new opportunities in the wake of an offshore storm. 

Life and Death of Sophie Stark by Anna North--An unapologetic filmmaker uses the stories of those around her to create movies that bring her both critical acclaim and ire from the people whose secrets she has exposed. 

Becoming Nicole: the Transformation of an... by Amy Ellis Nutt--Presents the story of a politically conservative New England family whose son identified as a girl, Nicole, and how they overcame their confusion and fear to champion transgender rights and allow Nicole to be herself.

Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta--A young Nigerian girl, displaced during their civil war, begins a love affair with another girl from a different ethnic community until the pair are discovered and must learn the cost of living a lie amidst taboos and prejudices.

Great LGBT Books for Young Adults!

The month of June is LGBT Pride month which is a world wide celebration asserting that LGBT people should be proud of who they are and embraces diversity and the acceptance of all people.  It is especially poignant this year after the horrible shooting in Orlando. No matter who we are--we all deserve to be loved and to be safe from hate and violence. Our thoughts and prayers are with the city of Orlando and all those affected by this senseless act.

Below are some of the best LGBT books for teens.  While entertaining, these books can also provide reassurance that you are not alone and reinforce that it’s okay to be different - -because we all are in our own individual way.

Fat Angie--e. E. Charlton-Trujillo
Angie is broken but hiding under a mountain of junk food hasn’t kept the pain away. Having failed to kill herself, she’s back at high school just trying to make it through each day. That is, until the arrival of KC--a girl who is 199% wow! A girl who never sees her as "Fat Angie" and who knows too well that the package doesn’t always match what’s inside. This is an appealing, darkly comic, anti-romantic romance.

Beautiful Music for Ugly Children--Kirstin Cronn-Mills
My birth name is Elizabeth, but I’m a guy. Gabe. My parents think I’ve gone crazy and the rest of the world is happy to agree with them, but I know I’m right. I’ve been a boy my whole life.  When you think about it, I’m like a record. Elizabeth is my A side, the song everybody knows, and Gabe is my B side―not heard as often, but just as good.  It’s time to let my B side play.

  
If You Could Be Mine--Sara Farizan
Seventeen-year-old Sahar has been in love with her best friend, Nasrin, since they were six. But Iran is a dangerous place for two girls in love--they could be beaten, imprisoned, even executed. So they carry on in secret. Then Sahar discovers what seems like the perfect solution but is saving their love worth sacrificing her true self?

George--Alex Ginio
When people look at George, they think they see a boy. But she knows she's not a boy. She knows she's a girl.  George thinks she'll have to keep this a secret forever. Then her teacher announces that their class play is going to be Charlotte's Web. George really, really, REALLY wants to play Charlotte. With the help of her best friend, Kelly, George comes up with a plan. 

None of the Above--I. W. Gregoria
Kristin Lattimer is homecoming queen, a champion hurdler with a full scholarship to college and is madly in love with her boyfriend. But then a visit to the doctor reveals that Kristin is intersex, which means that though she outwardly looks like a girl, she has male chromosomes, not to mention boy "parts."  Dealing with her body is difficult enough, but when her diagnosis is leaked to the whole school, Kristin's entire identity is thrown into question.

The Porcupine of Truth--Bill Konigsberg
Carson is resigned to spending his summer in Montana, helping his mom take care of his dying father. Then he meets Aisha, a beautiful girl who has run away from her difficult family and Pastor John, who's long, held a secret about Carson's missing grandfather. Together, Carson and Aisha embark on an epic road trip to find the answers that might save Carson's dad and restore his fragmented family.

Two Boys Kissing--David Levithan
A 2014 Stonewall Honor Book:  Based on true events—two seventeen-year-olds are about to take part in a 32-hour marathon of kissing to set a new Guinness World Record. As the pair becomes increasingly dehydrated and sleep-deprived, they also become a focal point in the lives of other teens dealing with questions of love, identity, and belonging.

Not Otherwise Specified--Hannah Moskowitz
Etta is tired of dealing with all of the labels that seem so important to everyone else in her small town.  Not gay enough for her ex-clique, not tiny and white enough for ballet, and not sick enough to look anorexic. Etta doesn’t fit anywhere—until she meets Bianca, the straight, white, Christian, and seriously sick girl in Etta’s therapy group. Can Etta be saved by a girl who needs saving herself?

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe--
Benjamin Alire Saenz
Aristotle is an angry teen with a brother in prison. Dante is a know-it-all who has an unusual way of looking at the world. When the two meet at the pool, they seem to have nothing in common. But as the loners start spending time together, they discover that they share a special friendship—the kind that changes lives and lasts a lifetime. 

June Was LGBTQ Pride Month--Celebrate with Some Award-Winning Books!

Every year the American Library Association's Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Round Table creates an Over the Rainbow Project book list for adults.  The mission of the GLBTRT is to create a bibliography of books that exhibit commendable literary quality and significant authentic GLBT content.

The following are some fiction and biography/memoir selections for 2015. 

To see the full list go here.  

Fiction:

Frog Music by Emma Donoghue--A long-forgotten, never-solved crime and a lyrical tale of love and bloodshed among scoundrels, captures the pulse of 19th century San Francisco.

All I Love and Know by Judith Frank--An intense drama of an American family on the edge of termination, one that explores adoption, gay marriage, and true love lost and found.

For Today I Am a Boy by Kim Fu--Peter Huang is the exalted only son in a sea of daughters. At the first opportunity, each of the girls leaves. But for Peter, escape is not as simple. Peter is supposed to fulfill his immigrant father’s dreams.  But Peter knows he is really a girl. 

Hild: a Novel by Nicola Griffith--A lush, sweeping historical novel about the rise of the most powerful woman of the Middle Ages, Hild of seventh-century Britain.

The Two Hotel Francforts by David Leavitt--It is 1940 Lisbon and two couples who are awaiting safe passage to New York, meet.  As Portugal's neutrality, and the world's future, hangs in the balance, the hidden threads in the lives of these four individuals begins to come loose. 

The Days of Anna Madrigal by Armistead Maupin--The latest novel in Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City series follows one of modern literature's most beloved and indelible characters--Anna Madrigal, the transgender landlady of 28 Barbary Lane.

Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932 by Francine Prose--A richly imagined novel of art, betrayal, the unforeseen consequences of love, and the ultimate unreliability of storytelling itself in Paris of the 1920s.

The Farm by Tom Rob Smith--Daniel believed that his parents were enjoying a peaceful retirement in Sweden. But with a single phone call, everything changes. Caught between his parents, and unsure of whom to believe or trust, Daniel hears an urgent tale of a crime and a conspiracy that implicates his own father.

The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters--In 1922 South London, impoverished widow Mrs. Wray and her spinster daughter are obliged to take in lodgers. But, little do they know just how profoundly their tenants will alter the course of their lives.

Biography/Memoir:

Fire Shut Up In My Bones by Charles Blow--A gorgeous, moving memoir of how one of America's most innovative and respected journalists found his voice by coming to terms with a painful past.

In My Skin: My Life On and Off the Basketball Court by Brittney Griner--Hailed as the world's most famous female basketball player, Brittney Griner has been shattering stereotypes and breaking boundaries ever since she burst onto the national scene. Now, she shares her coming-of-age story, revealing how she found the strength to overcome bullies and to embrace her authentic self.

Teaching the Cat to Sit by Michelle Theall--A universal story about our quest for unconditional love, Teaching the Cat to Sit makes us each reflect on our sense of humanity, our connection to religion, and our struggles to accept ourselves-and each other-as we are.