The 2018 novel tells the story of Mike Muñoz, a young biracial gay Chicano from a working-class family in Washington state. “We have been cursed,” said one librarian.Ĩ. World & Nation School librarians vilified as the ‘arm of Satan’ in book-banning warsĬonservatives vilify school librarians as “groomers and pedophiles” for stocking LGBTQ and racially themed books. At the Festival of Books in April, Thomas said books like hers are seen as dangerous because of the power they have to create change through empathy. An Illinois school board cited inappropriate language as a reason to ban the book in 2022 other challenges cited violence and an anti-police message. The bestseller was adapted into a 2018 film by the same name. Published in 2017, this novel about a teenage girl who witnesses a police officer kill her childhood best friend was inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement. Critics objected to its sexual-leaning content. In an interview with PEN America, Curato described “ Flamer” as a book about suicide prevention. This award-winning 2020 novel explores a teenage boy’s struggle to understand and accept his sexuality while at summer camp in the 1990s. Published in 2015, the book written by an Ohio State University literature professor faced challenges in 2021 about sexual depictions in the story. A 1937 explosion that killed nearly 300 students and teachers at a Texas school provides the historical context for this YA novel, a love story about a Black boy and a Mexican American girl.

A memoir told anecdotally, Tomboy follows author and zine artist Liz Prince through her early childhood into adulthood and explores her ever-evolving struggles and wishes regarding what it means to 'be a girl.' From staunchly refuting anything she perceived as being 'girly' to the point of misogyny, to discovering through the punk community that your identity is whatever you make of it, regardless of your gender, Tomboy is as much humorous and honest as it is at points uncomfortable and heartbreaking.4. Tomboy is a graphic novel about refusing gender boundaries, yet unwittingly embracing gender stereotypes at the same time, and realizing later in life that you can be just as much of a girl in jeans and a T-shirt as you can in a pink tutu. Liz was somewhere in the middle, and Tomboy is the story of her struggle to find the place where she belonged. But she wasn't exactly one of the guys either, as she quickly learned when her Little League baseball coach exiled her to the outfield instead of letting her take the pitcher's mound.

Growing up, Liz Prince wasn't a girly girl, dressing in pink tutus or playing Pretty Pretty princess like the other girls in her neighborhood.

Tomboy graphic novel