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Are you looking for support and resources to build upon your 2SLGBTQI+ awareness and inclusion practices?
Pam Strong, a regular contributor at the Reading for the Love of It conference, believes in empowering educators with the comfort, competence, confidence and resources that they need to build bridges to engaging and inclusive learning spaces, where students can build essential human literacy skills, while making meaningful connections to themselves and others.
Sharing a recommended reading list via her “StrongBookList”, you can access picture books and novels that share stories of diverse families, sexualities, gender identities, expressions and love – challenging the ways in which we teach about identity, difference and inclusion. Pam has remarked on how this book list has grown exponentially over the past decade. Too many to list, below are a few titles to consider.
Picture Books:
Rainbow – A First Book of Pride
By: Michael Genhart, 2019
The Pronoun Book
By: Cassandra Jules Corrigan, 2022
A Family is a Family is a Family
By: Sara O’Leary, 2016
Non-Fiction:
Beyond the Binary
By: Alok Vaid-Menon, 2020
Teaching about Gender Diversity
Teacher-Tested Lesson Plans for K-12 Classrooms
Edited By: Susan W. Woolley & Lee Airton 2020
It Feels Good to Be Yourself – A Book About Gender Identity
By: Theresa Thorn, 2019
Tween:
Hurricane Child
By: Kacen Callender, 2019
Star Crossed
By: Barbara Dee, 2018
Graphic Novels:
Surviving the City (Volume 1 & 2)
By: Tasha Spillett, 2018
Suggested for Grades 9+
Bingo Love
By: Tee Franklin, Jenn St.Onge & Joy San, 2018
Suggested for Grades 8+
Bloom
By: Kevin Panetta, 2019
Suggested for Grades 7+
Young Adult:
The Love & Lies of Rukhsana Ali
By: Sabina Khan, 2020
Suggested for Grade 9+
Parrotfish (Updated Edition)
By: Ellen Wittlinger, 2017
Suggested for Grade 9+
Poetry, Essays, and Anthologies:
All Boys Aren’t Blue
Written by George M. Johnson
Suggested for Grade 9+
The World That Belongs to Us
Edited By: Aditi Angiras & Akhil Katyal, 2020
Suggested for Grade 9+
Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches
By: Audre Lorde, 2007
Suggested for Grade 9+
Access the full StrongBookList
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Pam Strong
Pam Strong has extensive experience supporting 2SLGBTQI+ Inclusion in schools from kindergarten to grade 12. She has more than a decade of experience as an out, queer, elementary teacher, and as a centralized Equity Resource Teacher. Recently retired, Pam now works as an Equity Facilitator, supporting K-12 staff across the province to support meaningful inclusion…
Erica Townson (she/her)
Conference Organizer & Executive Administrator
East York-Scarborough Reading Association