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Exploring Books, The Pride Edition: Transgender and Non-Binary Stories
Welcome to June! May has passed by way to fast for me, but I certainly am enjoying the longer days, the warmer evenings and dreaming about fun weekend adventures. With June being Pride month for the LBGTQ+ community, this year especially, with the trans community being so viciously targeted across the country, it feels especially important to highlight some books that help explain or process the trans and non-binary experience. I’ve worked to include books for people of all ages and I have mostly chosen books I have read or am familiar with, but there are so many more books out there! Choosing books for this is NOT easy mostly…
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Book Award Round Up: Part 1: Latino, Arab and Australian!
You have probably heard the buzziest book award news in the last week as Margaret Atwood and Bernadine Evaristo shared the Man Booker prize for only the 3rd time in the history of the UK’s most prestigious book award. This was fun news and I know that I personally loved seeing two female authors, including an author of color, get such a prestigious honor. However, book awards over the last few months have also highlighted the achievements of many more authors from around the world and I am excited to share them all with you – these awards are such a great way to be introduced to the best work…
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Diversity in Children’s Literature: The Pride Month Edition
The generally white, always heterosexual parents of my favorite children’s books as a kid are a stark contrast (at least in terms of sexuality) to the world I was brought up in. However, while same-sex couples I grew up around never stood out as different to me, it was still incredibly difficult for non-heterosexual friends of mine, raised in that same community, to explore and express their personal feelings, and issues of intersexuality and transsexuality were never discussed (or shown on the pages of my books). In fact, I vividly remember reading Middlesex as a (maybe) 14 year old and being kind of mind-blown by the idea that a person…
because stories are important
