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Diverse Reads for All Ages Celebrating LGBTQ+ Pride Month |
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Pride Night at Miller Park Zoo
Wednesday, July 15,
5:00pm–8:00pm
Join us for Pride Night at Miller Park Zoo, a free, family-friendly celebration of the LGBTQ+ community! This event is being held in conjunction with Prairie Pride Coalition, Miller Park Zoological Society, PFLAG Bloomington-Normal, and Normal Public Library. Enjoy free after-hours zoo access, special activities, and a welcoming atmosphere for all.
Featuring crafts and activities from both libraries, a drag queen story time, opportunities to learn more about and support the local LGBTQ+ community, and lots of animals!
Miller Park Zoo is located at 1020 S. Morris Ave.
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Proud Dog
by Sharon Davey
A heartwarming and hilarious picture book that celebrates the joy of family! Meet Dorothy, a loving dog with two wonderful dads. Her life is filled with long walks, bubbly bath times, and splendid dinner parties. She takes pride in helping her dads with everything, ensuring their days are filled with fun. But everything changes when her dads bring home a new addition--a noisy, floppy, screechy, smelly baby! Dorothy's world is turned upside down as the family's routine is thrown into chaos. No more long walks, no more relaxing baths, and mealtimes become a whirlwind of activity. Determined to restore order, Dorothy tries her best to help her dads around the house, but nothing seems to work. The baby continues to disrupt their lives, and Dorothy misses the calm days when it was just her and her dads.
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My Gender, My Rules
by Andy Passchier
There are eight BILLION people living on Earth. That's eight billion unique laughs, smiles, ways to dress, think, act, and play. Gender is one way people express themselves. Some folks feel they are girls, some boys, some both, and some neither. Gender is different for everyone, and there's no wrong way to express it. This book, published in partnership with GLAAD, is a helpful and empowering way to have a first conversation with children about gender and how they feel about themselves. Filled with expert definitions and information about the world around us, this essential book reminds every reader that when it comes to gender, they make the rules for themselves.
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Fruitcake: A Graphic Novel
by Rex Ogle
A pitch-perfect middle-grade graphic memoir about crushes, coming out, and finding the courage to be yourself.Eighth grade isn't off to a great start. Everyone but Rex seems to be coupling up, and he's starting to feel like an outsider... until he meets Charlotte. She's fearless, smart, pretty, and she likes him back. But as great as Charlotte is, there's someone Rex can't stop thinking about.Drew is Rex's childhood best friend, so when he kisses Rex, all kinds of new feelings begin to stir. Though at school, Drew acts like he doesn't even know Rex, making those feelings turn really confusing really fast. And with all the strong opinions Rex hears at home and at church, he questions his own worth and what his affections actually mean. Rex wants to be more like his new friend, Nina, and not care what others think, but being himself seems impossible. When did middle school get so confusing?
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Athlete Is Agender: True Stories of LGBTQ+ People in Sports
by Book Author
A groundbreaking nonfiction collection of well-known LGBTQ professional athletes and queer authors telling stories about the feeling of belonging that comes with finding a sport that's yours, all dynamically packaged with photographs and full-color interior illustrations.
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To the Death
by Andrea Tang
Eighteen-year-old Samantha Chan wants only one thing: revenge for her brother's death in an illegal magical duel. Ever since that terrible day, she's been quietly working with legitimate dueling champion Lysander Rook and biding her time until she can take down her brother's killer: Mateus Blackwood. Tamsin Blackwood is trapped. She wants to make a name for herself in the magical dueling circuit, but she can't get away from the legacy of her father--and coach--Mateus Blackwood. When she receives a challenge from the undefeated Lysander and his assistant Sam, she jumps at the chance to earn enough fame and glory to finally escape her father's influence. Tamsin has no idea about Sam's scheming, and Sam plans to keep it that way. Despite herself, though, she can't help liking Tamsin, and the two girls quickly grow closer to each other than anyone else in their lives. But Sam won't let anything get in the way of her revenge--not even her heart.
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Better Catch Up, Krishna Kumar
by Anahita Karthik
Krishna Kumar may have gotten into her dream college, but that doesn't mean she's stopped being a bi disaster. Even after spending her whole summer in India flirting with her gorgeous neighbor Amrit, she has nothing to show for it. And now, her fate is sealed: she's destined to be the only freshman who's never been kissed. But when her flight home is delayed right as a distinctly flirty text from Amrit lights up her phone, Krishna is determined to seize her last chance at a perfect first kiss with Amrit, even if it means asking her cousin-turned-nemesis, Priti, for help. Because Amrit is miles away at a family wedding--and Priti's best friend, Rudra Desai, is the only one with a car. The unlikely trio set off on a road trip to crash a wedding and save Krishna's summer. But as she starts to fall for the quiet yet irresistibly hot and charming Rudra, who everyone knows is unrequitedly in love with Priti, Krishna realizes her heart better catch up to her head before she skips right past her first kiss and falls directly into her first heartbreak.
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One Word, Six Letters
by Adib Khorram
Freshmen Dayton and Farshid couldn't be more different--or so it seems. When Dayton takes a dare and shouts the f-slur at a visiting author during a school event, it sets off a chain reaction that forces both boys to face parts of themselves they'd rather ignore. Dayton, grappling with the fallout of his actions, faces rejection from his friends, disappointment from his parents, and a growing awareness of the harm he's caused. Meanwhile, Farshid is left to untangle his own feelings--about himself and about the quiet struggle of coming to terms with his queerness in a world steeped in heteronormativity. As their lives unexpectedly intersect, Dayton and Farshid must reckon with what kind of men they want to become and whether they have the courage to defy toxic masculinity and societal expectations. Timely, raw, and deeply thought-provoking, this novel is perfect for fans of Jason Reynolds and Nic Stone.
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Trans History: A Graphic Novel: From Ancient Times to the Present Day
by Alex L. Combs
What does trans mean, and what does it mean to be trans? Diversity in human sex and gender is not a modern phenomenon, as readers will discover through illustrated stories and records that introduce historical figures ranging from the controversial Roman emperor Elagabalus to the swashbuckling seventeenth-century conquistador Antonio de Erauso to veterans of the Stonewall uprising Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera. In addition to these individual profiles, the book explores some of the societal roles played by trans people beginning in ancient times and shows how European ideas about gender were spread across the globe. It explains how the science of sexology and the growing acceptance of (and backlash to) gender nonconformity have helped to shape what it means to be trans today.
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A Bite of Pepper
by Balazs Lorinczi
Pepper Mint might be born a vampire, but she's pretty much your average teenager who loves skateboarding and her dog. What she doesn't love is her mother's continuous efforts to find her a vampire bride so that she can become fully immortal. Then Pepper meets Ana--she's a charming art student, a part-time waitress...and interested in Pepper. Ana's presence changes everything, especially when she uses Pepper for the inspiration behind her art. But the two girls' instant chemistry seems to provide the perfect opportunity for Pepper to finally commit to becoming the immortal creature of the night her mother desperately wants her to be. Between the pressure from her mom and her inability to figure out whether Ana likes Pepper for herself or her aesthetic, it feels like everyone just wants a bite of Pepper. And with all these looming questions, will Pepper be ready to take the biggest bite of her life, committing to an unchanging immortality?
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Falling Back in Love with Being Human: Love Letters to Lost Souls
by Kai Cheng Thom
Kai Cheng Thom grew up a Chinese Canadian transgender girl in a hostile world. As an activist, psychotherapist, conflict mediator, spiritual healer, and celebrated writer, she's always pursued the same deeply personal mission: to embrace the revolutionary belief that every human being, no matter how hateful or horrible, is intrinsically sacred. But then Kai Cheng found herself in a crisis of faith, overwhelmed by the viciousness with which people treated each other, and barely clinging on to the values and ideals she'd built her life around: justice, hope, love, and healing. Rather than succumb to despair and cynicism, she gathered all her rage and grief and took one last leap of faith. Kai Cheng began writing letters to everyone she has trouble holding in her heart-those seemingly beyond saving.
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You Weren't Meant to Be Human
by Andrew Joseph White
Festering masses of worms and flies have taken root in dark corners across Appalachia. In exchange for unwavering loyalty and fresh corpses, these hives offer a few struggling humans salvation. A fresh start. It's an offer that none refuse. Crane is grateful. Among his hive's followers, Crane has found a chance to transition, to never speak again, to live a life that won't destroy him. He even met Levi: a handsome ex-Marine and brutal killer who treats him like a real man, mostly. But when Levi gets Crane pregnant--and the hive demands the child's birth, no matter the cost--Crane's desperation to make it stop will drive the community that saved him into a devastating spiral that can only end in blood.
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The Skin and Its Girl by Sarah CypherA young, queer Palestinian American woman pieces together her great-aunt's secrets in this sweeping debut, a family saga confronting questions of sexual identity, exile, and lineage. In a Pacific Northwest hospital far from the Rummani family's ancestral home in Palestine, the heart of a stillborn baby begins to beat and her skin turns a vibrant, permanent cobalt blue. On the same day, the Rummanis' centuries-old soap factory in Nablus is destroyed in an air strike. The family matriarch and keeper of all Rummani lore, Aunt Nuha, believes that the blue girl embodies their sacred history, harkening to a time when the Rummanis were among the wealthiest soap-makers and their blue soap was a symbol of a legendary love. Decades later, Betty returns to her Aunt Nuha's gravestone, faced with a difficult decision: Should she stay in the only country she's ever known or should she follow her heart for the woman she loves, perpetuating her family's cycle of exile?
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In the Dream House: A Memoir
by Carmen Maria Machado
The author's engrossing and wildly innovative account of a relationship gone bad, and a bold dissection of the mechanisms and cultural representations of psychological abuse. Tracing the full arc of a harrowing relationship with a charismatic but volatile woman, Machado struggles to make sense of how what happened to her shaped the person she was becoming.
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Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic
by Alison Bechdel
This book takes its place alongside the unnerving, memorable, darkly funny family memoirs of Augusten Burroughs and Mary Karr. It's a father-daughter tale perfectly suited to the graphic memoir form. Meet Alison's father, a historic preservation expert and obsessive restorer of the family's Victorian house, a third-generation funeral home director, a high school English teacher, an icily distant parent, and a closeted homosexual who, as it turns out, is involved with male students and a family babysitter.
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