Nel WardTalks abouta NewAnnual 'GLBTQ Book List'
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Joan Oleck -- School Library Journal, 02/13/2008
Are there quality books out there for young gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, and questioning (GLBTQ) readers? The newly launched "Rainbow Project"—a collaboration of the American Library Association (ALA) Social Responsibilities and GLBTQ round tables investigated and found that the best books are heavily weighted toward upper grade levels and peripheral characters. These books constitute part of the project's first, 45-title "Annual GLBTQ Book List for Youth," which is topped off by four starred titles. Nel Ward, a retired school librarian from the Phoenix Union High School District, and the Rainbow Project's chair, tells more.
The project’s members are all librarians. Is that a requirement?
What we look for are people interested in the subject either because they are GLBTQ themselves or perhaps have family members or an intense interest in the subject. For the first year, we looked for people who had a lot of experience in other best books groups in ALA. Many of us have been on Best Books for Young Adults, 
Quick Picks, Newbery, a variety of book selection groups.
All your starred titles are for young adults. Why no picture books?
What we did was look for books that stood above the rest. We thought, because of their quality, [the starred titles] should be noted. Because of the subject area, many authors are reluctant to write about this area. I want to commend the people who are brave enough to do this.
Have GLBTQ books changed much over two decades?
The books have changed because the earlier ones, at least for the children, were from small presses that didn’t have the money for production that the large publishers have. And in the past there has been a lot of anger about these books. Heather Has Two Mommies, [(Alyson, 1989), by Leslea Newman] which came out in the 1980s, became infamous; and everybody knew about that. And Tango Makes Three [(S&S, 2005), by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell], was the most censored book of 2006. So censorship is still there, but there are more books. And the more things are present, the more people become accustomed to them and are not as hostile to them.
The other thing that’s interesting to me is that when I started looking for GLBTQ books, I discovered there are so many books with what you could call "peripheral" characters—brothers, uncles—or books that, though they may not have a central gay character, they have a theme that establishes the conflict. It’s becoming much, much more common.
Speaking of Tango, are Project members getting involved in censorship battles?
Members of the committee have been involved when people try to censor books in their personal libraries. A member we have for next year is the director of the Cooperative Children’s Book Center in Madison, WS—K.T, Horning—and of course she’s one of the leading supports in the nation when librarians are approached with censorship issues.
There seem to be other areas in ALA that take care of censorship. So, while we won’t back off from it, an approach that we will be taking is to do programs at state and national library conventions, conferences. Victor Schill [a Project member, from the Harris (TX) County Public Library], plans to do a program for ALA on GLBTQ for young readers.
Do you expect to see new subjects broached in upcoming GLBTQ books?
What we’re going to see in the future are more books on transgendered young people, because in the past—I looked at the list this year—there was nothing on it. There was a book a few years ago by Julie Ann Peters called Luna (Megan Tingley Books, 2003), and that’s just about the only thing I can think of. Fortunately, we do have Cris Beam’s Transparent (Harcourt, 2007) this year. [In the book], a woman in Los Angeles who volunteered at a school for gay and transgendered students talks about these four transgendered girls [biological boys] who shared their world with her.
Obviously, these books are equally important for kids who are questioning their sexuality.
For young people, [adult and educator support] really is important when they are wondering about their sexuality, their gender preferences, their gender identities. For many of them, nothing is cut in stone when they’re teenagers and younger. So this allows them to explore it.
Librarians have access to your list. What about kids?
We write our descriptions, and we make our lists for the kids. We’re hoping that our MySpace page will get them there. We'd like it to be a part of the American Library Associatioin Web site. And we would like to get the Rainbow list into bookstores. I’m going to contact the American Booksellers Association, and PFLAG, (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays].
Is it a misperception that GLBTQ books for younger kids seem to be about tolerance for different kinds of families, while YA titles are about the actual experience of being gay?
I have had women tell me they [knew they] were lesbians when they were three and four years old. We may think that sexual identity only happens at puberty, but I think many young children grow up with maybe not a sexual attraction for the same gender but certainly an interest in it. [Ward recommends Harriet the Spy (Bantam, 2000) by Louis Fitzhugh, and The Sissy Duckling (S&S, 2002), by Harvey Fierstein and Henry Cole.]
