Queer books for younger readers

A simple but beautiful board book about love in all its forms. Almost effortlessly inclusive, Sophie Beer illustrates family units of all different kinds expressing love for each other in gestures of care.

Pretty much the simplest and most fundamental of all messages for kids – be yourself! Short, rhyming couplets that gently challenge the gender binary and encourage seeing themselves and others as unique and complex, rather than through a lens of pink/blue, girl/boy.

One of our all-time favourite picture books. After spotting three women dressed as mermaids, Julian tries to persuade his Nana to let him dress like one too. The results are joyous.

Boy meets merman! A fresh take on a classic love story, beautifully paired with James Mayhew’s ethereal illustration style.

These two aardvarks have everything in common, but they just keep missing each other – something has to be done! Morag Hood’s irresistibly funny picture books are a big hit with us (shout out to The Steves), but in this tender story about two companions-to-be she gently introduces their budding relationship for younger readers.

Billy’s mums are not especially ordinary. Well, they’re actually sea-shanty singing, jig-dancing, parrot-owning, eye-patch wearing… you get the jist. When Billy’s teacher asks them to volunteer on their class trip to the seaside, Billy is horrified. Swashbuckling antics ensue! Plus, a valuable lesson about difference and acceptance.

An incredibly generous and affirming novel for ages 9-12 about navigating the world as a nonbinary kid and some of the choices that entails (like, for our protagonist Jamie, deciding which secondary school to go to — the boys’ school or the girls’ school). Our favourite part of this book is Jamie’s little addendums to each chapter which are sometimes just a list of things they like about themselves, and are sometimes helpful definitions like “what are the different pride flags and why are they important?”

Archie wants to help his dad. His parents are getting divorced, but it also feels like they’re keeping a big secret from him. When his dad comes out, Archie and his friends decide to hatch a plan: a rip-roaring adventure of self-education that culminates at London Pride. Me, My Dad and the End of the Rainbow is a charming, funny story of friendship, family and acceptance.

A truly joyful graphic novel memoir about Theo’s journey of self-exploration and how they came to identify as trans and non-binary. Super accessible, ideal for readers 14+ and for fans of Tillie Walden, Heartstopper, and really sweet cat drawings (Theo has 3! Ben, Ollie and Henry).

A cracking young adult novel that starts off with some fairly typical teen problems – struggling with school, getting into trouble, falling out with friends – quickly descending into some fairly untypical teen problems when Maeve finds an old tarot deck in a disused school cupboard. As it turns out, she has a bit of a natural affinity for reading the tarot… What comes next is an a socially switched-on all-guns-blazing romp with excellent queer representation, mystical abductions, contemporary Irish politics and also an actually quite informative exploration of the Tarot. The sequel’s already out and there’s a third book planned so plenty to get stuck into.

We don’t need to tell you about Heartstopper, really, but we’ve had so many people tell us “I wish there had been something like this when I was a kid.” This is the first volume of the charmingly brilliant graphic novel phenomenon.

Dean Atta’s been making waves in the YA genre for a while with his slick, prose-poem-novels. His latest is a deliciously juicy coming-of-age, love-triangle-laced high school drama. Boy meets boy… and then meets another boy!

Felix is Black, queer and trans, and secretly worries that means his story will never end well. After receiving anonymous hate messages from another student, he hatches a plan to get payback. Felix Ever After is a compelling coming-of-age story with big helpings of romance, revenge, and self-discovery.