In celebration of Pride Month, we asked eight creators of children’s books showcasing queer history, culture, and joy to reflect on their works.

Tanya Boteju

Readers are introduced to your protagonist Cassie at a tumultuous moment in her life, where she’s unwilling to face her own queer identity and betrays a friend to protect herself. How did you balance inviting readers to empathize with Cassie while also grappling with the consequences of her actions?

Cassie makes a huge mistake that ends up hurting a good friend. She does it out of a deep fear that a secret part of her—her queerness—will become known and she will be judged for it. I tried to balance the very real terror she feels—and that I think a lot of people feel if they haven’t had any messaging that their queerness is perfectly okay—with her desire to feel safe and known in a real way. She does try to do the right thing to make amends with her friend, but she’s guided by fear rather than honesty or compassion for her friend or for herself. I hope people will see that she’s just a kid who’s doing the best she can with the things she’s learned and the people she has around her, and that every one of us makes mistakes when we’re scared or hurt.

How did you want to showcase the importance of her school’s Gender and Sexuality Alliance, and similar groups dedicated to offering queer kids a safe space?

I think I live in a bit of a bubble where GSAs are known and valued, but I know it’s not like that everywhere. First, I want people to know these incredible groups and spaces exist. Second, I want people to understand that they are essential spaces for queer and trans kids and their allies to feel safe, to learn, and to celebrate their identities. And third, I want people to know that allies and schools benefit from GSAs as well. Research shows that healthy GSAs make schools safer for all kids because homophobia and transphobia can impact anyone.

The title of this book highlights Cassie’s struggle to be perceived as “perfect.” What do you hope readers learn about the desire to be perfect from Cassie’s journey?

As a teacher, I’m surrounded by young people who are striving to be perfect; they feel pressure from educational systems, their parents, and social media to people-please and carry themselves with a shiny veneer. But perfectionism—and I’ve learned this through writing, actually—is oppressive and limiting. It hinders vulnerability, creativity, care for ourselves, and even care for others, because perfectionism can also make us competitive and narrow-minded about our goals. It’s really hard to let go of that need to be perfect, but I also believe it’s essential for really loving yourself and finding genuine happiness. I still struggle with that!

Messy Perfect by Tanya Boteju. Quill Tree Books Apr. $19.99 ISBN 978-0-06-335849-2

Kyle Casey Chu

What drew you to write about a boy navigating gender expression?

For me, drag is about locating your power—for finding the wounded, essential, feminine parts of ourselves and giving them the love and attention they have always deserved. Looking back, this is what drew me to drag and performance as a kid. It was less explicitly about defining gender than feeling beautiful, powerful, and unmistakably seen in my femininity at a time when my femininity was deemed intolerable by my peers. Fantasy—and by extension, drag—is protective in this way. It allows us to imagine and revel in our own possibility.

The Queen Bees of Tybee County reimagines what queer and trans coming of age can look like if we are given permission to fully and boundlessly explore who we are, held up by the support that I once yearned for at that age. I know this world is within reach. I think of it often.

How did you want to highlight the beauty pageant scene and its relationship to the queer community?

The pageant queen was one of my earliest accessible archetypes of acceptable feminine power—an archetype so routinely derided, belittled, and objectified—cast as superficial and regressive. These are all valid critiques. But at the same time, this isn’t necessarily how the pageant queen sees it. Because when you’re a pageant queen, you are living your fantasy. Problematic or not, in that moment, you believe you are beautiful and powerful, all within your expressed femininity. All of the pageant contestants I interviewed seemed to agree that pageants are about having your moment, luxuriating in it and letting all of that light fill you up.

And isn’t that what drag is all about? I wanted to pay homage to this trope not only because it’s a great narrative structure for self-discovery and coming of age, but also because flipping the dynamic in this way, and deciding to source pride and revelry in all of the things people make fun of you for, is such a serve.

And it is also a queer tradition. We created pageants to feel our power and reconstitute and redefine ourselves in our own terms. To me, this is what it means to be queer. Through this story, I want youth, whether or not they are queer or trans, to also have access to this sense of play and self-empowerment.

As one of the founding queens of Drag Story Hour, how do you hope to expand your work with drag and literature for young people?

When I taught second and third grade, I ran into a quandary experienced by many queer and trans educators: should I disclose my queer/trans identity to my class? And what I love about Michelle Tea’s Drag Story Hour is that it argues: why wouldn’t you bring your whole self to your youth work? This program allows me an avenue to continue working with youth in my free time and promote literacy, all while providing a positive queer/trans possibility model. I love it.

I write for middle grade because it is the age when I most needed help, and when books became life-saving to me. My introduction to queerness was painful. It reverberated through my life, and I spent many years unpacking that way of being. Because these formative years are not for “unbecoming” ourselves. They’re for becoming who we are meant to be. I want to write books and films that reflect this hard-earned lesson, by offering some answers to the questions that opened such an ache in me then. There were a lot of conversations I wish I could’ve had and reassurances I wish I could’ve given to my younger self. In a way, the books I write are a collection of those conversations and reassurances.

The Queen Bees of Tybee County by Kyle Casey Chu. Quill Tree, Apr. $19.99 ISBN 978-0-06-332695-8

Alex L. Combs and Andrew Eakett

Why did you want to highlight the history of trans identity in graphic novel form?

Comics are such a wonderful and powerful art form, and it’s one that we’ve continued to come back to over the years. The graphic novel format is a very accessible tool for storytelling as an individual artist/writer because it’s a visual medium, but you don’t need a lot of fancy equipment like, for example, in filmmaking. Also we hope that the comics format will make the information more entertaining for readers who might not normally pick up a history book or hunt down and read academic papers.

Can you share what it was like collaborating on this project as a couple?

We’ve worked on various comics projects together in the past, but this was by far the largest and took the longest. At first we had pitched the book as Alex’s book because, although Andrew knew he wanted to support the creation of the book in some way, we didn’t know what or how large his part would end up being. By the time we were done we had come to a new place in our relationship as a creative team and we’re excited to work on more projects together in the future. I’ve heard couples say that they think it would be hard to work together, but I also know other creative teams who are also couples. It takes some work to figure out and negotiate but it can be a very rewarding kind of relationship to be in.

Was there anything surprising that you learned?

We were pleasantly surprised to find that there was a lot of information out there, much of it published within the last few years before we started our research. This was really encouraging because it made us even more excited to get some of the more recently available information out there to a wider audience. Disappointingly, although perhaps not surprisingly, we discovered that just as there have always been people like us, there have also always been people who are willing to use us as scapegoats and attack us.

Trans History: A Graphic Novel: From Ancient Times to the Present Day by Alex L. Combs and Andrew Eakett. Candlewick, May $24.99 ISBN 978-1-5362-1923-4

Michael G. Long

What drew you to chronicle the AIDS epidemic for young readers?

The AIDS epidemic is marginalized, if at all present, in U.S. history courses. I suspect the reason for that is ongoing discrimination against queer people, even though AIDS was never a gay disease. But whatever the case, I wanted to fill the gap so that young readers understand that our history includes everyday heroes from queer communities, in particular, who have saved millions from certain death. It’s a breathtaking story that matters just as much as the histories of world wars. And it matters for young readers now, in this moment, as they learn about drastic cuts to federal programs for people with HIV and AIDS, and as they witness a shocking rise in political efforts to marginalize queer people.

What was your research process like for this book?

I loved digging through the archives at the New York Public Library and reading forgotten newspaper accounts of the AIDS epidemic, but my favorite part was the chance to talk with those who survived the epidemic. Hearing their stories of fighting AIDS, as well as their memories of friends and partners who did not survive, was a rich privilege. It was also a deeply emotional experience filled with tears and laughs, anger and disappointment, and hope and resolve.

Why was it important to showcase the impact of art and activism during a medical crisis?

The AIDS epidemic was in part a medical crisis that researchers, healthcare workers, and politicians were tragically slow to recognize and address. They needed a swift kick in the behind, and no one kicked harder and more effectively than artists and activists in queer communities filled with young people dying in horrific and unexplainable ways. Better than anyone else, these artists and activists understood that the medical crisis was inextricably connected with social prejudice against queer people. Without their protests, the AIDS epidemic would have raged much more fiercely than it did.

Fight AIDS!: How Activism, Art, and Protest Changed the Course of a Deadly Epidemic and Reshaped a Nation by Michael G. Long. Norton Young Readers, June $19.99 ISBN 978-1-324-05353-8.

Lauren Magaziner

What was the inspiration behind this story about a tween navigating the ins and outs of a resistance group?

I’ve read many “Chosen One” stories in which kids are told they’re magical, special, and powerful. And I’ve wondered: how do those characters not let all that adulation go to their heads, especially after they improve their magic and grow stronger? So, I started to write about a world in which people who had magic powers did become self-important, entitled, egotistical, and even tyrannical. Sorcerers who punch down at people without power.

To stand up to these sorcerers, I developed a group of regular human resistance fighters called Incorruptibles, who use tech to combat magic. They have a school (Inc Academy), where they train kids. At 13, kids are just starting to figure out who they are and their place in the world, and I loved exploring those themes from within a resistance group that is also trying to carve out their place in their fantasy-dystopian world.

What aspect of the worldbuilding for this book was the most difficult to craft?

From an emotional perspective, crafting the culture was painful. A lot of the things that bring me joy don’t exist in Fiora’s world, like movies, television, video games, and board games. Anything the sorcerers consider frivolous is gone because time needs to be spent in service of the sorcerers. And writing a world in which fiction is outright banned hurt my soul, but I knew it felt right—because so many people are afraid of stories, both in our world and in the world of The Incorruptibles. Fiction cultivates critical, analytical minds. And no one in power wants their worker bees cognizant of inequity. Having to conceive of a society without the very thing that shaped me felt like a near-impossible task.

Why was it important to portray a queer inclusive cast?

I love writing warmhearted, affirming queer rep. There’s something so euphoric about queerness being casual; everyone is comfortable being their authentic self in a queer-normative world. I want straight and cis readers to grow attached to the queer characters—and to absorb how the cishet characters are empathetic friends and good allies. And I want queer readers to walk away with a sense of belonging—and the understanding that they are valued for exactly who they are.

Younger me desperately needed to hear that being queer didn’t have to be dramatic, tragic, scary, the punchline of a joke, or the only thing about me, which so often felt like the cultural message when I was growing up. And queer kids deserve to have starring roles in fun, exhilarating fantasy adventures—and other genre fiction too!

The Incorruptibles by Lauren Magaziner. Aladdin, June 10 $18.99 ISBN 978-1-66596-866-9.

Tourmaline

Marsha P. Johnson is at the center of many of your books, including this picture book, your adult debut nonfiction book Marsha: The Joy and Defiance of Marsha P. Johnson, as well as your work as an archivist. When did you first learn about Johnson, and what interests you so deeply about her?

I first began hearing stories about Marsha when I was in my late teens, attending school in New York City. I began exploring Christopher Street, a historically queer gathering space, as part of my own journey to live more authentically as myself. Stories about Stonewall, street queens, and how people looked after each other were still being circulated, and through those stories I began to get a sense for how vibrant, joyful, and fully alive Marsha was. It’s that sense of joy and aliveness that has kept my attention for the past 20 years of research, interviews, and archive diving.

This picture book showcases many parts of New York City that are central to queer history. How did you decide which places to highlight?

New York City has this amazing archaeological sense of layered history to it. So many of the spaces that Marsha navigated are spaces that I navigate, that people bring their kids to, that tourists travel thousands of miles to experience. I wanted the book to come alive with that sense of place and shared history, and the love that Marsha had for her city.

How do you hope to impart the spirit of Marsha P. Johnson to young readers?

The heart of this book is about how joyful it feels to be true to yourself. Marsha was so clear—despite the harsh circumstances that she faced—that she was a promise, not a problem. I want every child who reads this book to feel that part of Marsha’s legacy, and to feel encouraged to celebrate themselves completely and collectively.

One Day in June: A Story Inspired by the Life and Activism of Marsha P. Johnson by Tourmaline, illus. by Charlot Kristensen. Putnam, May $18.99 ISBN 978-0-593-52537-1.

Victoria Zeller

Your central protagonist Grace Woodhouse plays football, and you are a former football player as well. Did your relationship to the sport help inform Grace’s?

Grace struggles a lot with what it means to love a sport that cannot unconditionally love you back, which is something I imagine resonates with a lot of former athletes who are queer. While Grace’s relationship with the sport does not neatly map onto my own, her difficulty reconciling the parts of football that she finds beautiful with the parts she finds terrifying hits close to home for me. Everybody who cares about football has to square that circle themselves, and figure out where they want to draw their boundaries. Grace is no exception.

Grace’s return to the football field garners unwanted and negative media attention. How does Grace’s experience mirror what many young trans athletes are facing today?

Something I wanted to hit on in this story is how normal Grace’s problems are. Her transness adds an extra dimension, naturally, but at its core, this is a teenage girl with a complicated relationship with her body, feelings for her ex, and uncertainty about her future. She’s just a kid! The trans athletes around the country who are being publicly harassed by adults are also just kids, with normal kid problems and dreams and flaws. The microscope put on them is just as unnatural, unfair, and invasive as it is on Grace.

What do you hope young readers will take away from this book?

There's no correct way to be a kid, whether you’re straight, queer, trans, or anything else. Despite what everyone tells you, every last decision you make right now does not determine everything about your future. You’re allowed to relax, to make mistakes, to enjoy being a kid as long as you can, and that’s especially true if you’re queer.

One of the Boys by Victoria Zeller. Levine Querido, May $19.99 ISBN 978-1-64614-502-7