Since June is Pride Month, I wanted to put together a list of LGBTQ+ titles to add to your classroom library! One of my goals in the coming school year is to better cultivate and organize my classroom library, so I thought it would be fun to share some of the books I’ve already added and some of the titles I’m hoping to pick up in the future!
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New Releases
At the end of the school year, I asked students to make a list of books they would like me to add to the classroom library. As I read through their recommendations, these LGBTQ+ suggestions stood out to me!
She Gets the Girl by Rachael Lippincott just came out in April, so I haven’t read it yet, but when it showed up in the school library, it went quickly!
Blaine for the Win by Robbie Couch was another popular student request for next year. My students liked Couch’s The Sky Blue, so I’m sure this will become another favorite!
The Taking of Jake Livingston by Ryan Douglass is not quite a recent release, but I hadn’t heard of it until one of my students suggested it for the classroom library. As a medium, Jake, who is Black, has to grapple with supernatural abilities and racism, but he hopes that romance might be in his future!
LGBTQ+ Romance Recommendations
With Colleen Hoover’s spike in popularity, I had more students than ever openly reading romance books. As a result, I need to incorporate a few more LGBTQ+ romance novels in my classroom! Here are some of the titles I’m hoping to add this year!
The Foxhole Court by Nora Sakavic is the first in the All for the Game trilogy. I started reading this book on a Friday, and the series consumed my weekend. I was late to this party, and I did not expect to love this book and these characters. The series focus on a young man with a dangerous past and his love for the sport exy, but that summary doesn’t really do these books justice.
Red, White, and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston was a popular book this year! I had several students read this during independent reading. One of my students even made this book the focus of her independent reading project. She did a great formalist reading of the character development in the novel!
The State of Us by Shaun David Hutchinson was another popular LGBTQ+ romance in my classroom. I don’t have a copy of this in my classroom library, so students were checking it out from the school library. I also had a student use this book as the focus of their independent reading project.
They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera has absolutely blown up, so it’s probably not a surprise to see it on this list. I had two different students tell me they couldn’t read this book in class because it was so good they kept crying. Plus, there’s a prequel coming out called The First to Die at the End.
Mysteries and Thrillers
While romance had a big year in my classroom, mysteries and thrillers also remained popular. This is one of my favorite genres, so I’m especially excited to add these LGBTQ+ titles to my classroom library!
The Good Girls by Claire Eliza Bartlett is part mystery and part coming out story. Two things really struck me about this book: one of the characters is forthright about being bisexual, and that probably doesn’t happen enough in television or literature. I was also struck by how outwardly feminist this book was. The mystery also sucked me in!
A Lesson in Vengeance by Victoria Lee is a Gothic piece of dark academia. I didn’t really understand what it meant for a book to be “atmospheric” or to have an aesthetic until I read this one. As I was reading, I gave my students updates, and their interest is what made me want to add it to my classroom library!
Rules for Vanishing by Kate Alice Marshall is definitely more of a ghost story thriller. My students tell me that it feels like the new Nancy Drew TV show. I do not like spooky stories, but my students tell me that this is a must read. There’s also a spinoff / prequel called Our Last Echoes.
LGBTQ+ YA Classics
Over the years, some YA titles have ascended to great heights (The Perks of Being a Wallflower, for example). These are LGBTQ+ titles that have achieved the pinnacle of popularity! A few of these are books that have been on our classroom shelf before and have either been lost or are too battered to go on.
Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan was the first LGBTQ+ book I ever read. I was in high school, and I remember thinking that I had never read anything quite like this. Since then, I have become quite the David Levithan fan. He’s written countless titles, but some of my favorites include Wide Awake, Naomi and Ely’s No Kiss List, and The Realm of Possibility.
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz is one of the books that used to be on my shelf and has been lost in the shuffle. There are many reasons to love this book, but the setting feels a lot like the town I live in. The sequel Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World just came out last year!
Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir is one of a kind. Maybe I’m being hasty in calling this series a classic already, but these books are that good. Even if you don’t think you’re going to be in to lesbian necromancers, you are going to be into lesbian necromancers. There’s just nothing like this. You think you’ve read it all, and you really haven’t until you’ve tried the Locked Tomb series.
Honorable Mentions
I enjoyed both of these books, but I’m not sure that my students are the target audience for these titles. Nevertheless, if you’re looking for a book with LGBTQ+ themes and characters, these titles might be for you.
If We Were Villains by M. L. Rio begins when Oliver leaves prison only to be confronted by the cop who arrested him. The rest of the novel focuses on Oliver’s story as he recounts his time at as a student of Shakespearean theatre and how that led him to jail. Personally, I think that English teachers might be the target audience of this book because the allusions are stacked ten deep!
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid has been on every must-read list all year long. I did have a few students read this book, but I don’t know that teenagers are really the target audience. Evelyn makes for an interesting narrator, and the book is part character portrait and part love letter. Parts of the book feel like glamour and stardust and parts of this book remind you what humans really are.
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