It’s Pride Month, and a great time to introduce the kids in your life to quality titles on LGBTQ+ history, highlighting the struggles and triumphs of queer icons while offering inspiration and courage for the future. A great primer for 9- to 13-year-olds is the graphic novel The Stonewall Riots: Making a Stand for LGBTQ Rights by Archie Bongiovanni, a volume in the popular History Comics series. I used this book with a tween comic book club last year, and kids were captivated by it. (“Wait, this is REAL?!” one reader said.) The book succinctly and powerfully, yet sensitively, conveys the events of the Stonewall Riots for a tween readership.
For young children excited to attend Iowa City’s Pride festivities, picture books celebrating self-expression and supportive communities abound, including This Day in June by Gayle E. Pitman, Twas the Night Before Pride by Joanna McClintock, and It’s Pride, Baby! by Allen R. Wells. My personal favorite is Pride Puppy by Robin Stevenson, about a family who loses their dog at a Pride parade. As an alphabet book that rhymes, it reinforces literacy concepts in addition to being a fun read-aloud.
I love picture book biographies! There are several recent gems that pair a visual feast with a tender story for elementary-age readers, highlighting little-known trailblazers in queer history. Andre Leon Talley: A Fabulously Fashionable Fairy Tale by Carole Boston Weatherford and Rob Sanders traces Talley’s life from the Jim Crow South to the highest echelons of the fashion world. Talley’s story serves as encouragement for young readers who are searching for a place to belong. Good Books for Bad Children by Beth Kephart gives past-due recognition to Ursula Nordstrom, perhaps the most influential children’s book editor of all time, who famously said “there are all kinds of children who need all kinds of books.” Where the Wild Things Are, Goodnight Moon and Harriet the Spy were among the many classics Nordstrom helped bring to life (all by LGBTQ+ authors, by the way). In addition to highlighting her impactful career, the book quietly provides a model of a queer woman who spends life alongside her female partner.
The Mother of a Movement: Jeanne Manford – Ally, Activist, and Co-Founder of PFLAG by Rob Sanders is a particularly moving biography. The book explains how Manford fought for LGBTQ+ rights by the side of her gay son Morty in the early 1970s. In addition to writing, demonstrating and speaking publicly, Manford founded PFLAG, an organization that encourages families to love and affirm their LGBTQ+ children.
These titles count toward your reading goal for ICPL’s Summer Reading Program, too; celebrate Pride and earn prizes by signing up for the program at icpl.org/srp.
Anne Wilmoth is a librarian at Iowa City Public Library and is currently reading The Sea Captain’s Wife by Tilar J. Mazzeo. This article was originally published in Little Village’s June 2026 issue.
