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lgbtq+ inclusive books

Library Content for Adult Readers
Library Content for Young Adult Readers
Library Content for Child Readers
Library Access LGBTQ Movies and Documentaries

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fountaindale public library

Our library in Bolingbrook is an inclusive, affirming, and safe space for LGBTQ+ kids, teens, and families. They have attended and done storytime for every event Bolingbrook Pride has done since our start in 2018.

They have an in-person collection of LGBTQ+ representative materials and many online resources as well. Here we have listed a small selection from each category. Explore their online catalogs for so much more and their LGBTQ+ blog for the latest additions!

Want to download or watch the content below but don't have a library card? Apply for one HERE!

Library Content for Adult Readers

Sister Outsider

Audre Lorde

Prose

Format:

E-Book

Over The Top: a Raw Journey to Self-Love

Jonathan Van Ness

Memoir

Format:

ePUB

Love Wins

Debbie Cenziper and Jim Obergefall

Biography

Format:

ePUB

This is How It Always Is

Laurie Frankel

Novel

Format:

Audiobook

The Danish Girl

David Ebershoff

Fiction

Format:

E-Book

Family Pride

Michael Shelton

Non-Fiction

Format:

ePUB

Lead Me Not

Ann Gallagher

Romance

Format:

Audiobook

Naturally Tan

Tan France

Memoir

Format:

Audiobook

Boy Erased

Garrard Conley

Memoir

Format:

ePUB

Forward

Abby Wombach

Memoir

Format:

Audiobook

Girl, Woman, Other

Bernardine Evaristo

Novel

Format:

E-Book

Midlife Crisis

Audra North

Romance

Format:

E-Book

Library Adult

Library Content for Young Adult Readers

The New Queer Conscience

Adam Eli and Ashley Lukashevsky

Non-Fiction

Format:

Ebook

The Summer I Wasn't Me

Jessica Verdi

Fiction

Format:

Print

Symptoms of Being Human

Jeff Garvin

Fiction

Format:

Print

Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda

Michael Crouch

Fiction

Format:

Audiobook

Almost Perfect

Brian Katcher

Romance

Format:

Ebook

I'll Give You the Sun

Jandy Nelson

Fiction

Format:

Ebook

It's Not Like It's a Secret

Misa Sugiura

Romance

Format:

Ebook

Just Between Us

J.H. Trumble

Romance

Format:

Ebook

None of the Above

I.W. Gregorio

Fiction

Format:

ePUB

Every Day

David Levithan

Fiction

Format:

ePUB

Boy Meets Boy

David Levithan

Romance

Format:

Ebook

All Out: The No-Longer-Secret Stories of Queer Teens Throughout the Ages

Saundra Mitchell

Fiction

Format:

Ebook

LibraryYoungAdult

Library Content for Child Readers

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

Benjamin Alire Sáenz

Fiction, 11+

Format:

Audiobook

Drum Roll, Please

Lisa Jenn Bigelow

Fiction, 8-11 years

Format:

ePUB

The List of Things That Will Not Change

Rebecca Stead and Rachel L. Jacobs

Fiction, 9+

Format:

Audiobook

10,000 Dresses

Marcus Ewert and Rex Ray

Picture Book

Format:

Ebook

This Day In June

Gayle E. Pitman

Picture Book

Format:

Ebook

The Misadventures of the Family Fletcher

Dana Alison Levy

Fiction, 8-11 years

Format:

ePUB

Drama: A Graphic Novel

Raina Telgemeier

Graphic Novel, 8-11 years

Format:

ePUB

The Pants Project

Cat Clarke

Fiction

Format:

Audiobook

The Flower Girl Wore Celery

Meryl G. Gordon

Picture Book

Format:

Audiobook

Gracefully Grayson

Ami Polonsky

Fiction, 11+

Format:

Audiobook

Perfectly Norman

Tom Percival

Picture Book

Format:

Ebook

Lily and Dunkin

Donna Gephart

Fiction

Format:

ePUB

LibraryChild

Library Access Movies and Documentaries

Based on Puccini's classic opera La Boheme, Jonathan Larson's revolutionary rock opera Rent tells the story of a group of bohemians struggling to live and pay their rent in the gritty background of New York's East Village. "Measuring their lives in love," these starving artists strive for success and acceptance while enduring the obstacles of poverty, illness and the AIDS epidemic. One of the longest running shows on Broadway, Rent was the winner of the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the Obie Award, the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, four Tony Awards and three Drama Desk awards.

Rent

Musical, Drama

Runtime:

2hr 15min

In 1969 the police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City's Greenwich Village, leading to three nights of rioting by the city's gay community. With this outpouring of courage and unity the Gay Liberation Movement had begun. After Stonewall, the sequel to Before Stonewall, chronicles the history of lesbian and gay life from the riots at Stonewall to the end of the century. Narrated by Melissa Etheridge, it captures the hard work, struggles, tragic defeats and exciting victories experienced during this time, and it explores how AIDS dramatically changed the direction of the movement.

After Stonewall

Documentary

Runtime:

1h 28m

Kindred spirits from different worlds become entangled together one volatile summer in this passionate, psychological thriller. Local girl Mona (Natalie Press) is naive, reckless and filled with yearning for something more in life. Tamsin (Emily Blunt) is spoiled and bored and trying to escape the confines of her prep-school existence when she draws Mona into her fantasy world. But what started as a magical friendship soon becomes laced with deception and danger.

My Summer Of Love

Drama

Runtime:

1h 27m

This hilarious foul-mouthed, lesbian road movie co-stars Oscar®-winning actresses Brenda Fricker and Olympia Dukakis as Dot and Stella, a crackerjack lesbian couple on the run from a nursing home. Stella and Dot have been together for 31 years and have faithfully accompanied one another through life’s ups and downs. Now in their seventies, Stella is hard of hearing and Dot is legally blind. Dotty’s prudish granddaughter, Molly (played by Genie Award-winner Kristin Booth), decides the best place for Dot is a nursing home that will provide all the necessities. This forces Stella and Dot to make a bold decision: they will leave their hometown and make their way to Canada, where same-sex marriage is legal. It’s a last-gap bid to stay together. En route to Canada, they pick up a young hitchhiker, Prentice, played by newcomer Ryan Doucette. A small-town boy turned modern dancer, he is returning to Nova Scotia to visit his dying mother. Despite his bravado, Prentice is a confused and wounded soul who has much to learn from Stella and Dot as they wage their own unexpected battle – after three decades, can they keep their family together?

Cloudburst

Comedy

Runtime:

1hr 33min

This film is about an inspiring young man whose story is exceptional, although not unique. When Moises Serrano was just a baby, his parents risked everything to flee Mexico in search of the American dream. Forbidden to live and love as an undocumented gay man in the country he calls home, Serrano saw only one option: to fight for justice. Serrano is like the thousands of other young people growing up in the United States with steadfast dreams but all the cards stacked against them. The film chronicles Serrano’s work as an activist traveling across his home state of North Carolina as a voice for his community, all while trying to forge a path for his own future. In the fall of 2016, presidential candidate Donald Trump is preaching damaging rhetoric towards immigrants and in North Carolina progress is unraveling as discriminatory laws continue to oppress the LGBTQ community. FORBIDDEN humanizes the issues and demonstrates how a loving family has the power to defeat prejudice. This is a story about love conquering hate.

Forbidden: Undocumented and Queer in Rural America

Documentary

Runtime:

1hr 22min

Oscar-winner for Best Picture, MOONLIGHT is a moving and transcendent look at three defining chapters in the life of Chiron, a young man growing up in Miami. His epic journey to adulthood, as a shy outsider dealing with difficult circumstances, is guided by support, empathy and love from the most unexpected places.

Winner of multiple Oscars including Best Picture, Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role and Best Adapted Screenplay. Golden Globe winner for Best Motion Picture - Drama. Winner of Best Feature, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography and Best Editing at the Film Independent Spirit Awards.

Moonlight

Drama

Runtime:

1hr 50min

16-year-old Billie's (Tilda Cobham-Hervey) reluctant path to independence is accelerated when her mother reveals plans for gender transition and their time together becomes limited to Tuesday afternoons. Filmed over the course of a year, once a week, every week – only on Tuesdays – these unique filmmaking rules bring a rare authenticity to this emotionally charged story of desire, responsibility and transformation.

52 Tuesdays

Drama

Runtime:

1h 54m

As the grandiose issues of the LGBTQ movement become part of the political theatrics and under debate in the highest courts in the land, it is the stories of those most directly impacted that can be the most moving.In this short documentary, young people who are children of LGBTQ parents provide a chance to walk in their shoes - to hear their own views on marriage, making change, and what it means to be a family. This film was produced by the COLAGE Youth Leadership and Action Program.

In My Shoes - Children of LGBTQ parents

Documentary

Runtime:

31min

In Chicago's Humboldt Park neighborhood, the Vida/Sida Cacica Pageant brings together members of the Puerto Rican community to celebrate its transgender participants. I Am The Queen follows Bianca, Julissa and Jolizza as they prepare for the pageant under the guidance of Ginger Valdez, an experienced transgender mentor from the neighborhood. These trans women share stories of their transition, their relatives' varying reactions, and how they find support from within the community. Family dynamics, cultural heritage, and personal identity all play a part in how the contestants face the daily struggle that comes from being true to themselves.

I Am The Queen

Documentary

Runtime:

1hr 15min

An intimate story of a family in transition. As 19-year-old Bennett Wallace navigates sobriety, adolescence, and the evolution of his gender identity, his mother makes her own transformation from resistance to acceptance of her trans son. Along the way, both mother and son find support in their communities, reminding us that families are not only given, but chosen.

Winner of the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the Frameline Film Festival.

Real Boy
A Son’s Transition. A Mom's Transformation

Documentary

Runtime:

1hr 12min

THE NEW BLACK boldy examines the controversial and challenging issues the African-American community is grappling with the gay rights issue in light of the recent gay marriage movement and the fight over civil rights. The film documents activists, families and clergy on both sides of the campaign to legalize gay marriage and examines homophobia in the black community’s institutional pillar — the black church and reveals the Christian right wing’s strategy of exploiting this phenomenon in order to pursue an anti-gay political agenda.

The documentary makes a compelling case that the fight for LGBT rights in Black communities is an extension of the Black Freedom Struggle. It takes viewers into the pews and onto the streets and provides a seat at the kitchen table as it tells the story of the historic fight to win marriage equality in Maryland and charts the evolution of this divisive issue within the black community.

The New Black

Documentary

Runtime:

1hr 15min

OUT IN THE OPEN destroys the misconceptions, fears, and myths about the LGBTQ community. This documentary is aimed for at risk youth across the world, as well as their families, friends, and teachers. OUT IN THE OPEN presents that no single person is the same and that all people should be celebrated. OUT IN THE OPEN interviews celebrities, politicians, and everyday allies, straight and gay, who openly celebrate the LGBTQ community.

These figures discuss how they coped with stereotypes attached to their sexual orientation by sharing personal experiences of coming to terms with their sexuality.

Out n the Open

Documentary

Runtime:

1hr 29min

LibraryMovies

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