The Weather and Everyone's Health

Saturday, March 15, 2008

ALA list of LGBT books...for young readers!

Mombian reports:

Where can children, teens, parents and librarians find new LGBT-themed children’s and young adult books of merit? Starting now, they can turn to the annual Rainbow List published by the American Library Association (ALA), the oldest and largest library association in the world.

It can be very hard for kids to discover LGBT-themed books, explains retired librarian and schoolteacher Nel Ward, chair of the Rainbow List committee. Even a helpful librarian may have trouble locating titles of interest...[]

"This list is not for [library] collection development," she says. It won’t contain the encyclopedias and academic works that librarians might want for reference. "It’s for kids. Obviously, with the very young people, parents will use it as a device to find books on diversity, but when we talked about the books, we said ’Will the kids read them?’

You might still wonder why such a list is necessary. The next quote really hammers it home:

"And Tango Makes Three was the most censored book in 2006 according to the ALA," said Ward, referring to the 2005 children’s book telling the true story of two male penguins in the Central Park Zoo that lived as a couple and raised a baby penguin together. "It’s just been removed from a library in Virginia, and there seems to be a struggle every time something like it comes out.

Any room for improvement?

Despite being pleased with the committee’s selections, Ward still sees room for more diversity within the list. She’d like to see more on transgender issues, noting, "There were only two books about transgender people on [this year’s list], one informational, one fiction." She would also like to see a young adult book dealing with intersex issues, a subject she has never seen covered for that age range.

Here is a link to the ALA blog with the list. Librarians are awesome. I might have one in the family soon.

- posted by k @ 7:07 AM