LGBTQ Materials for Classroom Use : Books
This guide provides recommended fiction, discussion guides, lesson plans, scholarly articles and local resources for instruction on LGBTQ topics.
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Featured Resources
LGBTQ Youth and Education by Call Number: LC192.6 M396 2014ISBN: 9780807754894Publication Date: 2013-11-29
About the Cooperative Children's Book Center
The Cooperative Children’s Book Center (CCBC) is an examination, study and research library of the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The CCBC’s noncirculating collections include:
- Current Collection
- Basic Collection
- Alternative Press Collection
- Historical Collection
- Reference Collection
About Book Selections
Recommended GLBTQ Novels for Classroom Use
In 2010 the CCBC compiled a list of recommended LGBTQ titles for use in high school and middle school classrooms, many of which have been nominated for awards and have received vast recognition. Bank Street College of Education has also compiled a list of such titles, and a selection of their recommendations for LGBTQ books in elementary school classrooms is listed below.
Books for High School Classrooms
David Inside Out by ISBN: 0805081224Christy Ottaviano Books / Henry Holt, 2009
David hasn’t yet reached a place of acceptance about his sexuality. His hidden feelings for Sean, his track teammate become irrepressible in this open and honest account of a teenage boy’s coming out. (HS)
Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You by ISBN: 0374309892Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2007
A singular, profoundly moving novel offers an in-depth portrait of a disaffected teen who is not only questioning his sexuality but is also fearful of moving into the future. (HS)How Beautiful the Ordinary by
ISBN: 0061155004HarperTeen / HarperCollins, 2009.
Twelve short stories—ten in prose, two in graphic novel form—explore gay, lesbian, and transgender identity among protagonists who range from child to teens to adult. (HS)
Touching Snow by ISBN: 9781416917953Atheneum, 2007
“The best way to avoid being picked on by high school bullies is to kill someone.” So begins a gripping novel about 13-year-old Karina, a first-generation Haitian teen, whose love for her best friend, Rachael, gives her the strength to confront her abusive stepfather. (HS)
Will Grayson, Will Grayson by ISBN: 9780525421580Penguin, 2010
When two teens, one who is gay, one who is straight, and both who are named Will Grayson, meet through a chance encounter, the fabulously flamboyant Tiny Cooper takes center stage in their lives in a funny, affirming, heartfelt look at gay teens and their allies. (HS)
Out of the Pocket by ISBN: 9780525479963Dutton, 2008
Bobby Framingham is a high school quarterback who dreams of recruitment to Stanford and then going pro but he worries that being openly gay could jeopardize his athletic future so stays in the closet until a student journalist outs him. (HS)
Boy Meets Boy by ISBN: 0375824006Alfred A. Knopf, 2003
A remarkable and hopeful fantasy that’s fresh and funny, that shows us a world where gay teens and straight teens are all just teens. (HS)
Ash by ISBN: 0316040096Little, Brown, 2009
Perhaps no one is more surprised than Ash herself when she realizes she’s fallen in love with Kaisa, the King’s huntress. A vivid retelling of “Cinderella” examines gender roles and expectations. (HS)
Luna by ISBN: 0316733695Little Brown, 2004
Regan is the only one who knows that at night her older brother transforms from Liam to Luna in one of the few YA novels to feature a transgender character. (HS)
Sprout by ISBN: 1599901609Bloomsbury, 2009
Sprout can ignore the rumors about his sexuality but he can’t ignore the desire to finally speak his own truth and decides to do it in the Kansas state essay contest. In addition to its over-the-top humor, this offers a realistic, passionate love story in which Sprout’s boyfriend faces very real danger at home if he comes out. (HS)
Freak Show by ISBN: 0142412317Dutton, 2007
Billy Bloom is a teenage drag queen, super freak and self-proclaimed gender obscurest, but he isn’t feeling the love at his new high school in a conservative suburb of Fort Lauderdale. Beneath Billy Bloom’s hilariously melodramatic account of his life, there’s a serious story about a sensitive boy’s search for love and acceptance. (HS)
Skim by ISBN: 9780888997531Groundwood, 2008
Kimberly Keiko Cameron (nicknamed Skim) is a Japanese-American icca-in-training who feels out of place in the Catholic girls' school she attends and is not sure what to do about the crush she has on Ms. Archer, her English teacher. This serio-comic graphic novel delves beneath the superficial every-day activities in high school to show the innermost thoughts and feeling of a single outsider student who's struggling to endure it all. (HS)
Hard Love by ISBN: 9780689821349Simon & Schuster, 1999
A high school senior falls in love with a fellow ‘zine-writer named Marisol before he even meets her, and continues to love her – hopelessly – even after she tells him she is a lesbian. (HS)
Orphea Proud by ISBN: 9780385901758Delacorte Press, 2004
Written as a piece of performance art, seventeen-year-old African American Orphea details a difficult life with two constants: her love of poetry and her love for Lissa. How she found and lost Lissa and then found herself through her art is the story she tells. (HS)
Books for Middleschool Classrooms
Down to the Bone by ISBN: 9780060843113HarperTeen, 2008
Sixteen-year-old Laura is outed at school, kicked out of her home, loses her girlfriend, and finds herself in this hilarious debut novel with an all-Latino cast. (MS)
Geography Club by ISBN: 0060012226HarperCollins, 2003
Four closeted high school students are too scared to form a GSA, so they come up with the most boring club name they can think of to give themselves a time and place to meet twice a week. (MS)Totally Joe by
ISBN: 068983957Atheneum, 2005
Over the course of six months, Joe’s essays for a seventh-grade English assignment (write about yourself from A to Z) reveal a lot about him, including the fact that he’s gay. Sequel to The Misfits. (MS)
Stitches by ISBN: 0888995784Groundwood, 2003
"Sissy. Crybaby. Fruitfly. Fagface." As Travis moves through junior high school, what began as mostly verbal bullying leads to acts of severe humiliation, and, eventually, brutality in a painful, powerful novel that is, remarkably, funny, too. (MS)
Empress of the World by ISBN: 0670896888Viking, 2001
When fifteen-year-old Nicola Lancaster falls in love with another girl who’s attending the same summer institute program for gifted students, her feelings surprise her because she’s only ever had crushes on boys in the past. One of the only novels for teens that explores bisexuality. (MS)
So Hard to Say by ISBN: 0689865643Simon & Shuster, 2004
Thirteen-year-old Frederick experiences culture shock after a move from Wisconsin to Los Angeles, making it even more difficult for him to come out, until he is befriended by a lively group of Latina girls at his new middle school. (MS)
7 Days at the Hot Corner by ISBN: 9780060574956HarperTempest, 2007
A sports novel takes an in-depth look at homophobia from the point of view of a straight teenage boy reacting to the news that his best friend is gay. (MS)
True Believer by ISBN: 9780689828270Atheneum, 2001
Stressed by the realities of being a teenager, being poor, and working hard to meet a demanding teacher’s expectations, LaVaughn becomes infatuated with Jody, a boy who recently moved into her apartment building, and feels as if her world has been complete upended when she sees him kissing another boy. (MS)
After Tupac and D Foster by ISBN: 9780399246548Putnam, 2008
A deep and tender look at friendship and growing up, this novel that spans almost two years in the lives of three African American girls in the mid-1990s. Homophobia, particularly in the African-American community, is deftly handled by exploring the girls’ feelings about a beloved older brother who is a flamboyant gay man. (MS)
Books for Elementary School Classrooms
Uncle Bobby's Wedding by ISBN: 9780399247125Publication Date: 2008-03-27Chloe is jealous and sad when her favorite uncle announces that he will be getting married, but as she gets to know Jamie better and becomes involved in planning the wedding, she discovers that she will always be special to Uncle Bobby--and to Uncle Jamie, too.
King and King by Call Number: PZ3 H11132 Ki 2002ISBN: 9781582460611Publication Date: 2003-03-01When the queen insists that the prince get married and take over as king, the search for a suitable mate does not turn out as expected.
Molly's Family by Call Number: PZ3.G165 Mol 2004ISBN: 9780374350024Publication Date: 2004-04-07While preparing decorations for Open School Night, Molly and several of her classmates draw pictures of their families and discover that family means something different to each of them.
Best Colors (Los Mejores Colores) by Call Number: PZ3 H6761 Be 1999ISBN: 9781884834691Publication Date: 2002-07-01Nate has trouble deciding what his favorite color is, but his two mammas help him realize that he does not have to have a best, best color.
