Queer YA books are selling in record numbers despite bans targeting them

August 26, 2022 10:43 AM

Diversity and creativity in LGBTQ+ young adult books is thriving. Authors told The 19th why that’s important and recommended some of their favorites.
posted by Etrigan (29 comments total)

I suspect that the efforts in various places to ban these books are actually helping to boost their sales.
posted by beagle at 10:45 AM on August 26, 2022 [11 favorites]

Despite bans targeting them? Those are basically recommended reading lists.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 10:47 AM on August 26, 2022 [24 favorites]

This fits nicely with the previous thread about everything that was blamed on jazz.

...which reminds me of an article I read recently about a church that lost its case trying to stop the SPLC from calling it a hate group. The article pointed out that the church was basically using cut-and-paste rhetoric from the 1950s about how Black men's sexuality was destroying America and threatening your precious innocent daughters and simply slotting in LGBTQ+ people for Black men.
posted by clawsoon at 11:03 AM on August 26, 2022 [7 favorites]

Came here to roll my eyes Barbra Streisand-style at "despite," was not disappointed.
posted by chavenet at 11:06 AM on August 26, 2022 [6 favorites]

Even in Russia one of the most popular books of the summer is a (very tame, non-explicit) book about the ambiguously romance-tinged friendship between a teenage Young Pioneer and his troop leader.
posted by derrinyet at 11:47 AM on August 26, 2022 [3 favorites]

I think it's important to remember that the Streisand effect only works in a free society, and not get too complacent.

A lot of conservative efforts are about creating an authoritarian government and society which clamps down on any liberal thought (despite their fervent protestations about free speech and small government). That young people can still access banned books in authoritarian red states is not something we should take for granted.
posted by splitpeasoup at 11:48 AM on August 26, 2022 [21 favorites]

I'm thinking more and more we need a Free School available only on the net, or the dark net, that give the kids the info their overlords won't permit.
posted by hypnogogue at 12:11 PM on August 26, 2022 [1 favorite]

There is this.
posted by zenzenobia at 12:22 PM on August 26, 2022 [4 favorites]

Just finished reading They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera with my early teenage daughter. We both loved it and found it very moving. I can only imagine how many people might feel seen and understood reading that book. I dearly hope they get to.
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 12:22 PM on August 26, 2022 [3 favorites]

Banned books selling well is a dangerous excuse for people not to fight book banning. Queer books are being removed from schools and school libraries and the kid and teen sections of public libraries, which is keeping them from their intended audience. Queer kids (particularly those without money to buy books) are being denied access to books that could save their lives. We are in crisis and focusing on book sales isn't going to help.
posted by tangosnail at 12:23 PM on August 26, 2022 [32 favorites]

I'm glad for the books that have had their sales boosted by the extra recognition.

But these book bans are having genuine negative effects on people. If you're a queer 14-year-old with parents who aren't supportive, you probably don't have a credit card to order a book from Amazon. You might not be able to get a ride to Barnes & Noble (and if you can, you might not be able to check out without having your purchases inspected). But - if your parents are not so strict that they've enrolled you in a private Christian school - you can go to the school library before class or after class or during your lunch hour and read whatever you want to read and know that no one is going to stop you or report you to your parents. To lose age-appropriate queer literature from school libraries is a significant hardship for children and teenagers, especially those who don't have access to their own money and transportation.

And whether or not bans are successful - I have to imagine that it is hard to be in a school district where people are screeching about LGBTQ+ literature, or in a town where multiple library directors have been harassed out of their jobs.
posted by Jeanne at 12:29 PM on August 26, 2022 [41 favorites]

Jeanne's right. My beloved state of Michigan has been in the national news again lately because the library staff in a small town refused to remove a graphic memoir called Gender Queer from the collection, and the town voted to defund the library. The Washington Post says it's the most-challenged book currently.

Our local library's millage passed by a large margin earlier this month, I'm grateful to say. But I wondered which way it was going to go.
posted by Well I never at 1:16 PM on August 26, 2022 [10 favorites]

I guess people in these communities have been paying no attention whatsoever to who has actually been grooming and abusing their children?
posted by clawsoon at 2:32 PM on August 26, 2022 [12 favorites]

Oo! Here are my favorites:

Annie On My Mind by Nancy Garden (a classic!)
Strange Creatures by Phoebe North (MeFi's own!)
A Love Story Starring My Dead Best Friend by Emily Horner (MeFi's own!)
The Raven and the Reindeer by T. Kingfisher
How to Make a Wish by Ashley Herring Blake
Girl Made of Stars by Ashely Herring Blake
In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan
Memory of Water by Emmi Itäranta
A History of Glitter and Blood by Hannah Moskowitz
Girl, Serpent, Thorn by Melissa Bashardoust
The Dark Beneath the Ice by Amelinda Bérubé

If you've got a few hundred hours to spare, I could start in on my second-favorites...
posted by kyrademon at 2:33 PM on August 26, 2022 [10 favorites]

Graphic novels and memoirs:

A + E 4ever, Ilike Merey
As the Crow Flies, Melanie Gillman
Call Me Nathan, Catherine Castro
Cheer Up! Love and Pompons, Crystal Frasier
Gender Queer: A Memoir, Maia Kobabe
The Girl from the Sea, Molly Ostertag
Honor Girl, Maggie Thrash
Juliet Takes a Breath, Gabby Rivera
My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness, Kabi Nagata
Queer: A Graphic History, Meg-John Barker
Spellbound: A Graphic Memoir, Bishakh Som
Stage Dreams, Melanie Gillman
Tomboy: A Graphic Memoir, Liz Prince
Welcome to St. Hell, Lewis Hancox
posted by box at 2:48 PM on August 26, 2022 [3 favorites]

A Love Story Starring My Dead Best Friend by Emily Horner (MeFi's own!)

Too hot for Granbury, Texas!

(If you have actually read the book... it's not racy. I was incapable of writing anything genuinely racy at that point in my life.)
posted by Jeanne at 3:02 PM on August 26, 2022 [15 favorites]

Just for the record I do not care very much about the banning of my book, which has been out of print for a few years in any event, and there are a gazillion queer YA books that do better at addressing things I wasn't thinking about in 2008-ish. I do care immensely about the banning of those books. And, of course, I think it's absolutely ridiculous that they're targeting books that have so little genuinely objectionable content.
posted by Jeanne at 3:29 PM on August 26, 2022 [12 favorites]

in Russia one of the most popular books of the summer is a (very tame, non-explicit) book about the ambiguously romance-tinged friendship between a teenage Young Pioneer and his troop leader.

Woah what’s this called, I have a friend who this was basically written for
posted by showbiz_liz at 3:56 PM on August 26, 2022

Woah what’s this called, I have a friend who this was basically written for

Лето в пионерском галстуке (Summer in a Pioneer Necktie). See coverage in Meduza here.
posted by derrinyet at 4:44 PM on August 26, 2022 [2 favorites]

I am glad that the books are selling, so that publishers keep publishing LGBT YA books,

but LGBT teens deserve access to LGBT YA books in school libraries,

because even if they can physically get to a bookstore, and have the money to buy a book, it may not be safe for them to get caught having an LGBT book at home.
posted by carriage pulled by cassowaries at 5:00 PM on August 26, 2022 [12 favorites]

Gender Queer: A Memoir, Maia Kobabe

I bought this, curious what all the controversy was about, and it is entirely appropriate for ages 14+.

It's also a really well written book and a really well told story.
posted by carriage pulled by cassowaries at 5:02 PM on August 26, 2022 [4 favorites]

This is all massively disturbing but what’s really awful is that kids in these communities (and in this country) know these horrible hate-filled fanatics want them removed from the school or town, too.
posted by zenzenobia at 6:19 PM on August 26, 2022 [13 favorites]

even if they can physically get to a bookstore, and have the money to buy a book, it may not be safe for them to get caught having an LGBT book at home.

Yeah, and the internet helps but is subject to the same problem. A kid who can't get their hands on or safely possess a paper book may be able to access the content on the internet, but the internet and the kids are so heavily surveilled these days there's still a serious risk they'll be caught. That's why libraries, specifically, are so important; there's no real substitute for a physical space where a kid can go and read a book, for free, without necessarily being closely watched or leaving an observable trace.
posted by BlueNorther at 7:35 PM on August 26, 2022 [11 favorites]

For the record, three of my books have been banned in TX, one has been banned in OK, and none of them got a sales boost. Individual titles get a hot spotlight focus, and sometimes get a sales boost from it because everyone, including the publisher, gets behind it and works the publicity machine to put pressure on the book's banners.

Unfortunately, the book banners have figured out that if they put together a slate of books, say, 800 of them, that publishers and authors cannot effectively fight back. Too many targets at once, so they often focus on one or two titles already selling well, to highlight the situation.

Sometimes this means books on a slate get put back on the shelf. That one recognizable title gets lots of people involved, and can often get the slate returned to the shelves. (This happened to one of mine in Granbury ISD, TX, hay Jeanne!) but sometimes it just means that all those books get wiped away and there's no way to keep track of them. My publisher did nothing specifically for my titles when my books were banned, although they were dismayed.

These slates of banned books also become Shadow Banned-- other schools and libraries avoid buying them in the first place, out of fear they will be challenged. I've been asked to justify the purchase of one of these books, which may well get pulled from the shelves, versus spending the same amount of money on a book that won't. My response is always that one kid's life is worth $17.99, even if that one kid is the only one who gets to read it.

But is it realistic? Not for lots of schools and libraries, who have seen funding cut to the bone and had their Boards filled with politically-motivated people eager to get rid of these books. And it hurts kids. It hurts them to see books that represent them get banned, it hurts them when they can't find books that represent them. It hurts when we have to say, please don't make the cover of my very queer book very queer, or kids won't get to take it home from the library.

I recently did a library visit, where I had someone in the audience "observing." When it came time for Q&A, that observer just wanted to ask me about sexualizing and grooming children. In front of a bunch of queer kids from a very small, rural town, who had gotten the courage together to come to my event. And yeah, I tore that "observer" to pieces, politely, with facts. But those kids came to an event FOR them, and they STILL had to suffer the indignities of an intolerant world.

So... well, really, I don't have a thesis point, or a perfect statement to sum this up. Except we MUST disabuse people of the thought that authors somehow benefit from their books being banned. Most of them do not. And this may be a golden age for queer authors finally being allowed to write YA-- but as soon as we don't sell, especially to the biggest school and library market in the nation-- that age will end.

There is no upside to this, except perhaps it will make enough people angry enough to run for school and library boards, and it will make people angry enough to withstand the gerrymandering and voter suppression taking place all over our nation, to help make a long lasting change that has nothing to do with our books but everything to do for our queer kids. Because they deserve better than this, and what the fuck are we going to do to make sure they get it?
posted by headspace at 11:53 AM on August 27, 2022 [61 favorites]

the church was basically using cut-and-paste rhetoric from the 1950s about how Black men's sexuality was destroying America

The lack of originality from conservatives isn't surprising; all the contemporary transphobic rhetoric I've seen is just recycled homophobia from the 90s and 2000s.
posted by AlSweigart at 7:56 AM on August 28, 2022 [5 favorites]

The new rash of book bans will have their biggest effect when the current gen of teenagers are old enough to become the next set of authors and librarians and publishers. Right now most of our librarians are older and grew up in an age when access to literature was expanding, partially thanks to the internet. There's a trend among very online "progressive" teens now to be in favor of censorship - whether that will extend to printed books and libraries or just stay aimed at their fellow writers online remains to be seen.
posted by subdee at 9:48 AM on August 28, 2022

But I sure appreciate the reminder that the bans are a backlash to the actual progress we've made so far.
posted by subdee at 9:51 AM on August 28, 2022

There's a trend among very online "progressive" teens now to be in favor of censorship

Define “censorship”.
posted by pxe2000 at 10:11 AM on August 28, 2022 [1 favorite]

Middle school librarian here. For the last year or two, the number one request from students (other than anodyne inquiries like "can you help me find a good book?") has been, "Do you have any gay romance?" Yes we do, my friend, this may be the golden age of YA gay romance.
posted by Harry Black Goat at 9:10 AM on August 29, 2022 [7 favorites]