Rainbow Reads for Grades 3-8
Recommended fiction featuring young gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and questioning characters. Most books about LGBTQ+ rights can be found in the nonfiction collection under 305.9. Books about gender identity can be found under 306.76. Click here for a print-friendly version of this list.
Children’s Fiction (J)
| Author | Title | Call Number |
|---|
| Blake | Ivy Aberdeen's Letter to the World After a devastating tornado, Ivy finds comfort in her art and develops feelings for another girl at school. (310 pp.) | J Blake |
| Callender | Hurricane Child In the Virgin Islands, Caroline falls in love with another girl and together they set out in a hurricane to find Caroline's missing mother. (214 pp.) | J Callender |
| Gino | George Melissa hopes the school play will help her share the truth: that she's really a girl, not a boy as other people think she is. (195 pp.) | J Gino |
Junior High Fiction (Y)
| Author | Title | Call Number |
|---|
| Barakiva | One Man Guy When Alek’s parents send him to summer school, he thinks his summer is ruined. Then he meets Ethan. (255 pp.) | Y Barakiva |
| Bell | Alan Cole Is Not a Coward Hoping to keep his brother quiet about Alan's crush on a boy, Alan agrees to a competition involving nearly impossible tasks. (262 pp.) | Y Bell |
| Bigelow | Drum Roll, Please For Melly, going to band camp also means coping with her parents' divorce, changing friendships, and her crush on another girl. (306 pp.) | Y Bigelow |
| Bunker | Zenobia July Zenobia, attending school as her true gender for the first time, must discover who is posting hateful memes on the school website. (313 pp.) | Y Bunker |
| Dee | Star-Crossed When Mattie is cast as Romeo in the school play, she is confused to find herself attracted to Gemma, a classmate who is playing Juliet. (277 pp.) | Y Dee |
| Desai | Born Confused Shy Dimple comes into her own as she explores her Indian heritage and the exciting world of New York City. (413 pp.) | Y Desai |
| Federle | Better Nate Than Ever Nate, who dreams of performing on Broadway, concocts a plan to run away to New York and audition for E.T.: The Musical. (275 pp.) | Y Federle |
| Hitchcock | One True Way When Allison and Samantha's friendship deepens into something more, they discover it's not easy to be gay in 1977 North Carolina. (213 pp.) | Y Hitchcock |
| Horner | A Love Story Starring My Dead Best Friend As she sorts out her feelings of love, Cass, an introverted math genius, searches for a way to memorialize her best friend. (259 pp.) | Y Horner |
| Howard | The Whispers Riley believes that if he leaves tributes for the whispers, magical fairies that grant wishes, his missing mom will come back. (229 pp.) | Y Howard |
| Howe | Totally Joe Joe writes an alphabiography—life from A to Z—and explores issues of friendship, family, school, and the challenges of being gay. (189 pp.) | Y Howe |
| Lo | Ash Ash must choose between a handsome fairy cursed to love her and the King's Huntress whom she loves. (264 pp.) | Y Lo |
| Melleby | Hurricane Season Fig worries her father's fragile mental health may have terrible consequences and searches for new ways to understand him. (288 pp.) | Y Melleby |
| Pancholy | The Best at It Rahul searches for an activity where he can shine, while struggling with his mental health and questioning his sexuality. (336 pp.) | Y Pancholy |
| Polonsky | Gracefully Grayson With the help of a school play, Grayson, a transgender girl, learns to accept her true identity and share it with the world. (243 pp.) | Y Polonsky |
| Riordan | The Sword of Summer Magnus Chase, son of a Norse god, must save the world with the help of his friends, among them Alex, who is genderqueer. (497 pp.) | Y Riordan |
| Sanchez | So Hard to Say When Xio starts thinking of Frederick, the new boy, as her boyfriend, Frederick must confront his fear that he might be gay. (230 pp.) | Y Sanchez |
| Woodson | The House You Pass on the Way When Staggerlee spends a summer with her cousin Trout, she begins to question her sexuality. (99 pp.) | Y Woodson |
Comics & Graphic Novels
| Author | Title | Call Number |
|---|
| O'Neill | Princess Princess Ever After As heroic Amira and kind Sadie adventure across the kingdom, they discover that they bring out the very best in the other person. (53 pp.) | Y Comic ON |
| Ostertag | The Witch Boy In Aster's family, girls become witches, and boys become shapeshifters. Aster must summon his courage to be who he truly is: a witch. (210 pp.) | Y Comic OS |
| Wang | The Prince and the Dressmaker Prince Sebastian loves wearing daring dresses, trusting only his dressmaker friend Frances with his secret. (276 pp.) | Y Comic WA |
Last Updated: 9/19
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