Welcome to Family Equality’s Book Nook, a comprehensive list of the best LGBTQ+ books for the whole family!
Whether you’re searching for your child’s first picture book or a young adult novel that your tween will devour, Family Equality’s Book Nook is a list of our favorite books that represent diverse families in a loving and respectful way.
Check out the search portal below to discover what new LGBTQ+ books you need to add to your at-home, local, or school libraries!
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The Transgender Child: A Handbook for Families and Professionals
Stephanie A. Brill
Through extensive research and interviews, as well as years of experience working in the field, the authors cover gender variance from birth through college. What do you do when your toddler daughter’s first sentence is that she’s a boy? What will happen when your preschool son insists on wearing a dress to school? Is this ever just a phase? How can you explain this to your neighbors and family? How can parents advocate for their children in elementary schools? What are the current laws on the rights of transgender children? What do doctors specializing in gender variant children recommend? What do the therapists say? What advice do other families who have trans kids have? What about hormone blockers and surgery? What issues should your college-bound trans child be thinking about when selecting a school? How can I best raise my gender variant or transgender child with love and compassion, even when I barely understand the issues ahead of us? And what is gender, anyway? These questions and more are answered in this book offering a deeper understanding of gender variant and transgender children and teens.
This is a Book for Parents of Gay Kids: A Question & Answer Guide to Everyday Life
Dannielle Owens-Reid and Kristin Russo
Written in an accessible Q&A format, here, finally, is the go-to resource for parents hoping to understand and communicate with their gay child. Through their LGBTQ-oriented site, the authors are uniquely experienced to answer parents’ many questions and share insight and guidance on both emotional and practical topics. Filled with real-life experiences from gay kids and parents, this is the book gay kids want their parents to read.
True Selves: Understanding Transsexualism for Families, Friends, Coworkers, and Helping Professionals
Mildred L. Brown & Chloe Ann Rounsley
This work combines authoritative information and humanitarian insight into the transsexual experience. Filled with wisdom and understanding, this groundbreaking book paints a vivid portrait of conflicts transsexuals face on a daily basis—and the courage they must summon as they struggle to reveal their true being to themselves and others. True Selves offers valuable guidance for those who are struggling to understand these people and their situations. Using real life stories, actual letters, and other compelling examples, the authors give a clear understanding of what it means to be transsexual. They also give other useful advice, including how to deal compassionately with these commonly misunderstood individuals– by keeping an open heart, communicating fears, pain and support, respecting choices.
Where’s the Mother? Stories from a Transgender Dad
Trevor MacDonald
“A deeply compelling memoir from a transgender man who birthed and breastfed his children – it’s informative, inspiring, and transformational.” – DIANA WEST, co-author of The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding, 8th edition
In a time when to most people “pregnancy” automatically means “motherhood,” what is it like to get pregnant, give birth, and breastfeed a child all while being an out transgender man?
When Trevor MacDonald decided to start a family, he knew that the world was going to have questions for him. As a transgender man in a gay relationship, Trevor has gone through the journeys of pregnancy, childbirth, and nursing all while exploring (and sometimes defending) his role as a trans dad. Trevor and his partner tackle all the questions new parents are familiar with, such as: Should we feed our baby breast milk or formula? Should we have a hospital or home birth?
Other questions are much less familiar: How can a man cope with gender dysphoria when going through such female-coded rituals as childbirth and breastfeeding? How can a person breastfeed after having had chest masculinization surgery? How do we find donor milk to supplement our own modest milk supply?
Luckily for the reader, Trevor explains his own answers to these questions with grace and humor. His stories convey the intimate and sometimes surprising realities of the transgender parenting experience. This memoir is a book about being a breastfeeding parent and a transgender man, and the many beautiful, moving, and difficult ways these two identities collide. It reminds us that birth is a fundamental process that lies outside simplistic definitions and concepts. Coming at a time when transgender people around the world face significant legislative oppression and violence, “Where’s the Mother?” is a memoir about love and family like no other.
Which One of You is the Mother?
Sean Michael O’Donnell
After fifteen years of up-all-night gay disco dance parties, Sean O’Donnell and his longtime partner Todd decided to trade in their leather chaps for mom jeans and start a family. In August 2012 the not-so ambiguously gay duo walked into a Pittsburgh-based adoption agency and said, “We’d like a child, please.” For the next several months they attended parenting classes, subjected themselves to probing FBI background checks, and completed enough paperwork to reforest the whole of the Amazon River basin. Despite lacking a magical baby-making vagina the pair successfully made omelets without eggs when in July 2013 they flew to Oregon to meet their seven-year-old son for the first time. No longer Sean and Todd they would now be forever known as Dad and Papa to the observant boy (“So that’s how you sleep.”) with a million questions (“Do you have a girlfriend?”, “Where do babies come from?”, “What’s gay?”) No sooner had they settled into their new roles when the stork returned the following year, delivering another boy who quickly proved that five-year-olds were basically talking babies who could use the toilet. Which One of You is the Mother? is the story of how two gay guys finally met the two kids who were always meant to be their sons. This is a book that celebrates a different kind of family who just happens to be like every other family on the block. Only gayer. And funnier.
You’re Not from Around Here, Are You? A Lesbian in Small-Town America
Louise A. Blum
This is a funny, moving story about life in a small town, from the point of view of a pregnant lesbian. Louise A. Blum, author of the critically acclaimed novel Amnesty, now tells the story of her own life and her decision to be out, loud, and pregnant. Mixing humor with memorable prose, Blum recounts how a quiet, conservative town in an impoverished stretch of Appalachia reacts as she and a local woman, Connie, fall in love, move in together, and determine to live their life together openly and truthfully. The town responds in radically different ways to the couple’s presence, from prayer vigils on the village green to a feature article in the family section of the local newspaper. This is a cautionary, wise, and celebratory tale about what it’s like to be different in America—both the good and the bad. A depiction of small town life with all its comforts and its terrors, this memoir speaks to anyone who has ever felt like an outsider in America. Blum tells her story with a razor wit and deft precision, a story about two “girls with grit,” and the child they decide to raise, right where they are, in small town America.
10,000 Dresses
Marcus Ewert
Every night, Bailey dreams about magical dresses: dresses made of crystals and rainbows, dresses made of flowers, dresses made of windows. . . . Unfortunately, when Bailey’s awake, no one wants to hear about these beautiful dreams. Quite the contrary. “You’re a BOY!” Mother and Father tell Bailey. “You shouldn’t be thinking about dresses at all.” Then Bailey meets Laurel, an older girl who is touched and inspired by Bailey’s imagination and courage. In friendship, the two of them begin making dresses together. And Bailey’s dreams come true! This gorgeous picture book—a modern fairy tale about becoming the person you feel you are inside—will delight people of all ages.
123 A Family Counting Book
Bobbie Combs
Have fun with the kids, moms, dads, and pets in this delightful book that celebrates LGBT families as it teaches young children to count from one to twenty.
123 A Family Counting Book
Bobbie Combs
Have fun with the kids, moms, dads, and pets in this delightful book that celebrates LGBT families as it teaches young children to count from one to twenty.
A Cat Like That
Shirley M Ringo and Glenda MacInnis
Our books helps children with same sex parents find their identity through stories of loving family and friendship. Jack Discovers a lost mangy cat has moved into his tree house. With the help of his Dad's he looks for the owner but learns not all people want to help a Cat Like That. the importance's of Equality is something that Jack learns from his Dad's .
More Resources for LGBTQ+ Families
Once you put down your most recent purchase, check out all the other activities, resources, and programs we create to support and connect LGBTQ+ families like yours across the country!
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Have an LGBTQ+ book you’d like to submit to our list?
If you know about an LGBTQ+ book that isn’t on our list, but should be—let us know! Use the form below to contact a staff member, and we’ll be in touch about next steps.