Middle Grade Madness! discussion

Feel free to recommend as many LGBT+ books as you like below!
Please only recommend Middle Grade books. (Because this is a middle grade group and I know people will benefit more if the books are only middle grade.)

Please clearly label your recommendation(s) from other comments you might make like “I love that book” or “I’m reading that book right now”, etc.

Please use book links like: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone or to help people navigate around GR to find the book(s) easily.

Please include some extra details on the book (if it’s part of series, if it’s part of other genres, etc.)

Challenge: Describe why you like the book in 5-8 words!

(Reserved comment for future use)

Here’s a link I found of some really cool and interesting looking books with LGBT+ representation in it: https://hclib.bibliocommons.com/list/...

Kostas wrote: "I recommend and going to read " Six of Crows" its been on my tbr for too long and I've heard a lot about it.
Goodreads link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2......"

Six of Crows is far from Middle Grade I suppose. Sorry Kadi, but I can't participate this month. However one MG book that's LGBTQ+ that I also loved is The Pants Project. It's about a transgender kid :)

She says we can read YA for the readathons to make it easier but that’s the only time we are allowed to read YA. After all, YA is still children lit so we are still supporting child lit.

True Ilsen but it would be better if the recommendation pages only had MG recommendations on them. Whereas for the readathons you can of course still read YA but I didn’t think YA genres needed a recommendation page because they are a lot easier to find.

Is this why some people said I should set up a specific recommendations page for the readathons? And if so, do you think I still should?

And Fuzaila it’s a shame you can’t take part in this month’s readathons but there will still be a ton of new events coming next month that you can hopefully take part in :)

It’s ok Kostas😊 I realised I should have specified how to judge if it’s Middle Grade or not but I thought it was well known by people so I didn’t bother.

Usually it’s easy to tell if a book is MG or YA. I find that YA has more explicit violence and more explicit romance compared to MG books.

But sometimes a book can be inbetween MG and YA and it can be hard to figure out which one it is so I like to use this site: https://www.arbookfind.com/default.aspx

When you search for the book it will be classified as LG, MG, MG+ or UG. Like this:


LG - Lower Grade (children’s books)
MG - Middle Grade
MG+ - Middle Grade for slightly older readers. (These are the books that are inbetween MG and YA)
YA - Young Adult

If it’s classed as MG and MG+ then feel free to recommend it! I’ve never actually read Six of Crows so I wouldn’t know if it’s Middle Grade but I trust this website and it’s never wrong so if it says it’s MG then it’s MG.

Kostas wrote: "Thx, I usually just check the summary of a book and nothing else so I didn't know.I also deleted the comment."

You didn’t need to delete Kostas because it’s Middle Grade! Personally I didn’t know but the website says it is so it’s fine to recommend it if you want to.

I’m sorry I know this website is good but how the heck is Six of Crows MG+?? Even the author considers it more New Adult.

MG+ is like between middle grade and YA but I always thought of Six of Crows as YA.
I tried looking it up and most people just called it YA so I’m not sure because I’ve not actually read the book before.

It’s definitely still fine for the readathon though😊

I’ve never found the website questionable because I’ve tried it out with loads of different books and this is the one time where I’m questioning it.

Yea I thought it was legit but like MG+ for Six of Crows is a stretch

Ilsen wrote: "Yea I thought it was legit but like MG+ for Six of Crows is a stretch"

I absolutely agree with you here Ihsen. Six of Crows is far more violent in nature than any other YA book I've read. I'm actually surprised it's considered YA. The only reason for that is the characters are aged 17, but even the best 5-star reviews say that the characters act too mature for their age.

Also Kadi, I'm hoping you'd make a thread in the second comment section? That'd make it easy for us to find the recs rather than searching through all the comments :)

Here's my suggestion:
The Pants Project - #challengeaccepted - Awesome Trans rep, friendships and a unique plot!

Fuzaila wrote: “Also Kadi, I'm hoping you'd make a thread in the second comment section? That'd make it easy for us to find the recs rather than searching through all the comments :)”

Do you mean you’d like me to compile people’s recommendations in the second comment (the one that I reserved)? I was thinking of doing that it’s a nice idea.

Ilsen wrote: “I’m sorry I know this website is good but how the heck is Six of Crows MG+?? Even the author considers it more New Adult.”

I definitely consider it New Adult.

Kadi wrote: "Fuzaila wrote: “Also Kadi, I'm hoping you'd make a thread in the second comment section? That'd make it easy for us to find the recs rather than searching through all the comments :)”

Do you mean ..."

I mean yeah, if you didn't reserve it for some other purpose, then why not 😅 this discussion thread would get longer as people come up with recs so I just thought it would be helpful to have them all in one page :)

I read a few LBGTQ books for the August reading challenge that I enjoyed.

Gracefully Grayson

Star-Crossed

Interestingly, both books are about a school putting on the Shakespeare play, Romeo and Juliet.

think someone already said this, but The Pants Project
and then
My Life as a Diamond
are both about trans kids

One True Way

I like Ashley Herrings blake’s LGBT+ middle-grade books

The Mighty heart of Sunny st. James
Ive Aberdeens letter to the world

Sorry I don't know how to add book links

I think this book is rated 12+ so it is for quite young people but it is really good. I don’t know how to link books yet but it’s is called “Love, Frankie” by Jacqueline Wilson. It is about a girl who is lesbian, and from a person who doesn’t read a lot of LGBT books (because I cannot find any good ones) it’s really good.

Great list Kadi, thanks for sharing. This year my goal is to read more diverse stuff MC is a different race, religion etc, so this list is helpful

The language of seabirds by Will Taylor is good I gave it 3 stars.

The tea dragon society graphic novel series is so good 5 stars

Rep: Nonbinary Mc's Format: Graphic novel Rating: 4 stars

Rep: Transgender boy Format: Graphic novel Rating: Vol 1 4 stars Vol 2 4 stars

Rep: nonbinary Format: novel Rating: 4 stars but close to 5

Rep: Lesbian MC's Format: Graphic novel Rating: 4 stars

Rep: Nonbinary Format: Novel Rating: 5 stars

Rep: Nonbinary Format: Novel Series: yes Rating: 4 stars almost 5, planning to re read so I can finish the series when the last book comes out.