A Genteel Black Hole

Saoirse/27/Canada/she/her Recent library school grad & aspiring children's librarian 

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Picture Book Recs II: Titles N through Z

Over the last couple days, I’ve been seeing a lot of conversation in book twitter around deplatforming JK Rowling. And while I appreciate the sentiment, seeing people recommend their personal favourite cis white authors seemed to me to be missing the point. So I’m working on rec lists of books created by trans and/or BIPOC people who could use your support! I’m starting with picture books (I was an assistant preschool teacher before COVID closed the daycares) but watch this space for future posts for older kids, teens, and adults! Wherever possible, links will go directly to publishers so you don’t have to worry about putting money in Jeff Bezos’ pockets.

The Nutmeg Princess, Richardo Keens-Douglas & Annouchka Galouchko

Power Poems For Small Humans, ed. S. Bear Bergman

Quackenstein Hatches A Family, Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen & Brian T. Jones

Rhinos for Lunch And Elephants For Supper, Tololwa M. Mollel & Barbara Spurll

Stolen Words, Melanie Florence & Gabrielle Grimard

Strictly No Elephants, Lisa Mantchev & Taeeun Yoo

Viola Desmond Won’t Be Budged!, Jody Nyasha Warner & Richard Rudnicki

Wild Berries, Julie Flett

Worm Loves Worm, J.J. Austrian & Mike Curato

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Picture Book Recs: Titles A through N

Over the last couple days, I’ve been seeing a lot of conversation in book twitter around deplatforming JK Rowling. And while I appreciate the sentiment, seeing people recommend their personal favourite cis white authors seemed to me to be missing the point. So I’m working on rec lists of books created by trans and/or BIPOC people who could use your support! I’m starting with picture books (I was an assistant preschool teacher before COVID closed the daycares) but watch this space for future posts for older kids, teens, and adults! Wherever possible, links will go directly to publishers so you don’t have to worry about putting money in Jeff Bezos’ pockets.

A Princess Of Great Daring — Tobi Hill-Meyer & Eleanor Toczynscki

A Promise Is A Promise — Michael Kusugak, Robert Munsch, & Vladyana Krykorka

Aunt Harriet’s Underground Railroad In The Sky — Faith Ringgold

Blackflies! — Robert Munsch & Jay Odick

Double Trouble for Anna Hibiscus — Atinuke & Lauren Tobia

I Love My Hair — Natasha Anastasia Tarpley & E. B. Lewis

Love Is In The Hair — Syrus Marcus Ware

Max Found Two Sticks — Brian Pinkney

The Name Jar — Yangsook Choi

EDIT: I included the wrong draft of the image, please reblog again. SHOULD FINALLY BE THE RIGHT ONE THIS TIME.

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Tentative 2020 TBR

2019 was a really slow reading year for me, hoping to get back in the swing of things this year! Signing up for Beat The Backlist on team TBR STACKERS for reasons that should become evident in a second.

Currently Reading:

David Bowie Made Me Gay: 100 Years of LGBT Music 

Wylding Hall (book club book, recommended by @jeaniefranklins)

School Books for January:

Daggerspell

Furies of Calderon

Select Recent Acquisitions:

The Disasters

The Far Side of Evil

We Sold Our Souls

The Ghost Collector

Girls of Paper and Fire

Night Sky Mine

New Moon

The Ultra Fabulous Glitter Squad Saves The World Again

Some Interesting Stuff That’s Been On The TBR Shelf For Too Long:

Babel-17

Seraphina

Red Shift

Pay The Piper

The Ghost Network

Miracle Girls

Eldritch Manor

The Bone Mother

Once And Future

Mythago Wood

And that’s not even getting into the boxes of unread graphic novels.....

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Sapphicathon Recs: Quick Reads (Novellas & Short Stories)

1. Modern Serpents Talk Things Through -- Comedic fantasy in the vein of Esther Friesner’s Chainmail anthologies. Neurotic dragon Tina finds herself unexpectedly attracted to a human prisoner and dreads telling her therapist about her.

2. Romancing The Inventor -- Dapper mad scientist Genevieve Le Foux, familiar to readers of Carriger’s other works, finally gets a starring role! Set after the events of the Parasol Protectorate (but readable on its own), Mme. Le Foux, living among vampires, falls for a servant girl with a head for mathematics.

3. Walking On Knives: A Little Mermaid retelling in which the Sea Witch’s sister falls in love with the mermaid. Definitely more Andersen than Disney.

4. The Big Reveal: Contemp romance between two big ol’ nerds. Samus is a bi trans woman teaching a course on sci-fi. Jack is a cosplayer who starts the story identifying as a lesbian but with Samus’ help discovers that he’s a trans man.

5. Wet Nails: Lonely grad student Adina is visited by the ghost of her favourite classic Hollywood actress. They talk about the difference between their lives as bi Jewish women living fifty years apart, and also have hot ghost sex.

6. Knit One, Girl Two: Yarn maker Clara makes a yarn collection inspired by the work of local painter Danielle. The two women meet and bond over nerdy interests, and Clara helps Danielle pull herself out of a depressive episode as they start dating.

7. Down Among The Sticks And Bones: Neglected twins Jacqueline and Jillian find their way into a gothic horror inspired secondary world. If you’ve read the first book in this series you already know this ends badly; if you haven’t and you don’t want sad endings skip this one!

8. Humanity For Beginners: Cute friends-to-lovers romance ft. lesbian werewolves who run a bed and breakfast and insist that their ever-increasing found family totally doesn’t count as building a pack.

9. Love Beyond Body Space And Time: An anthology of LGBTQ2-focused stories by indigenous authors. The one about two indigenous lesbians looking after too many puppies on a space ship is adorable.

10. The Kissing Booth Girl: A collection of short stories in a variety of speculative fiction genres. Many focus on the romantic and/or sexual relationships between human and non-human characters of a variety of genders.

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Sapphicathon Recs: Adult Speculative Fiction (Novels)

1. The Parasol Protectorate-- Paranormal/Steampunk series with surprisingly complex worldbuilding and delightfully detailed descriptions of clothes and food. While protagonist Alexia is in a committed relationship with a man for most of the series, she is also attracted to women and has a flirtatious friendship with a dapper butch mad scientist.

2. The Second Mango (and sequels)-- Fluffy Jewish fantasy starring a young lesbian queen and her ever-increasing found family. The first volume is about newly-crowned Queen Shulamit and her bodyguard Rivka going on a quest to find the queen a girlfriend.

3. Daughter of Mystery (and sequels)-- Historical fantasy. Margerit Sovitre receives an unexpected inheritance, including the service of an intriguing female bodyguard. Romance, swordplay, magic, and political intrigue in a fictional country in the Alps. 

4. The Drowning Girl-- Horror/dark fantasy. A gorgeous meditation on art, love, ghosts, monsters, and madness. #ownvoices schizophrenic main character and trans love interest.

5. Ascension-- This is what the future of space opera should look like and I’m regularly sad that the expected sequels have yet to appear. Chronically ill black lesbian space mechanic stows away on a very unusual ship.

6. Temporary Agency-- Unusual blend of sci-fi and paranormal, set in a very weird near-future. A young woman and her older journalist lover unravel a conspiracy involving mystical interference with human politics.

7. Maplecroft-- Infamous suspected murderess Lizzie Borden killed her parents because they were starting to morph into Lovecraftian horrors. She continues the fight against the eldritch abomination, along with her reluctant sister and unsuspecting actress girlfriend.

8. An Unkindness Of Ghost-- Haunting take on the ‘generation starship’ concept. Unflinching in its portrayal of sexual violence, so be careful when reading if you have triggers in that area. Queer black autistic genderqueer woman investigates the secret documents her engineer mother left behind.

9. Chameleon Moon-- Hopeful dystopian sci-fi. Everyone in the burning city of Parole has unique super-powers (think x-men). Amnesiac lizard man Regan tries to recover his own secrets with the help of cabaret singer/superhero Evelyn and her two wives.

10. My Real Children-- Elderly nursing home patient Patricia Cowan realises she has two competing sets of memories of her adult life. As Trish, she married her college boyfriend; as Pat, she rejected him and instead fell in love with Beatrice. How can Patricia chose between two lives, and two families?

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TOP TEN: SAPPHIC COMICS AND GRAPHIC NOVELS

1. Fun Home-- Graphic memoir by lesbian cartoonist Alison Bechdel (of Bechdel Test/Dykes To Watch Out For fame) depicting her childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood, with a focus on her complicated relationship with her father, himself a closeted gay man. Late teen/adult audience.

2. Insexts-- Victorian-era lesbian couple gain the ability to transform into horrifying insect monsters, get their revenge on their patriarchal and imperialist enemies. Adult audience, plenty of sex and violence.

3. Bombshells-- Unlike most superhero comics, Bombshells (and the follow-up series, Bombshells United) is its own self-contained universe, an alternate history in which everyone’s favourite female DC characters originally appeared in the 1940s and fought Nazis. Basically every major character is LGBT.

4. Gotham Central-- Police procedural set in Gotham City. Renee Montoya, a major character, is a lesbian; an early storyline focuses on her forced outing. Her relationships with her girlfriend and her homophobic parents are recurring plotlines. Late teen/adult audience.

5. My Faith In Frankie-- Supernatural rom-com featuring the love quadrangle between bi girl Frankie, her lesbian best friend, her undead childhood boyfriend, and her own personal god. YA and older audience.

6. Small Favors-- Annie is a young woman who is so horny she has already used up her lifetime supply of orgasms. Conscience spirit Nibbil is assigned to reign Annie in, but she turns out to be even more insatiable. Adult audience, the ‘girly porno comic’ subtitle is not a joke.

7. Mahou Josei Chimaka-- Bitter grown-up former magical girl Chimaka learns that there are still love and magic in the world. Not necessarily unsuitable for a YA audience but I feel like it would resonate better with adults.

8. Space Battle Lunchtime-- The adventures of the first human contestant on Space Masterchef. Includes a romance plot with a dashing fish-alien bad girl rival chef. MG and older audience.

9. Batwoman: Elegy-- The origin story of Batwoman. Kate Kane has always dreamed of being a soldier like her father and late mother, but she won’t compromise her ideals and lie about her sexuality in order to serve. Inspired by an encounter with Batman, she leaves the military and strikes out on her own as a vigilante. Teen and older audience.

10. Lumberjanes-- Gravity Falls style Pacific Northwest comedic supernatural horror set at a girl scout camp. Includes a cute age-appropriate romance plot between two of the girls; also features a major trans character.

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TOP TEN: SAPPHIC YA SPECULATIVE FICTION

1. Girls Made of Snow and Glass-- Dark fantasy Snow White retelling, with alternating POVs between the princess and her stepmother. This book made me cry at multiple points. The princess has a girlfriend, although honestly the romance plot is far from my favourite element of the story. 

2. Origins And Overtures (Wolf House, book one)-- First book in a queer punk vampire series. Alternating POVs between Bette, a bi girl with an (at this point) unacknowledged huge crush on her demigirl best friend, and her classmate Jay, a boy with a complicated history, as they make friends and enemies in their city’s underground vampire community.

3. Fire (Graceling Realm, book 2)-- Cashore does this wonderful thing where she takes ‘mary sue’ traits and completely unironically incorporates them into her fantasy worldbuilding. In this book it’s the existence of ‘monsters’, who look the same as normal people and animals, except in unusual colours; their beauty is mesmerising. Bi girl Fire is the last remaining human-shaped monster following the death of her psychopathic father.

4. Labyrinth Lost (Brooklyn Brujas, book 1)-- Reluctant witch Alex, born into a powerful magical bloodline, goes on a quest to rescue her family from peril in a magical realm, accompanied by a cute girl and a cute boy. Delightful mix of urban and portal fantasy. 

5. Dreadnought (Nemesis, book 1)-- The trans lesbian superhero YA you need in your life. Closeted trans girl Danny inherits powers from a dying superhero-- powers that include automatically giving her her ideal body. You’d think that magic would make transitioning easier but it comes with a whole new set of problems. 

6. Sound (this has a companion book but reads fine as a standalone)-- Haitian-born and raised in India, teen scientist Miyole uncovers the dark underbelly of her comfortable world and reveals buried memories of her early childhood while rescuing her girlfriend’s brother from the interplanetary slave trade.

7. Adaptation (Adaptation duology, book 1)-- Fast-paced sci fi thriller with a bi lead. Reese and her crush/debate partner/maybe boyfriend David are in an accident and wake up in a mysterious clinical facility. They can’t remember what has happened to them, but they soon realise they’re developing some kind of superpowers.

8. All Our Pretty Songs (Metamorphoses, book 1)-- The unnamed narrator has always grown up in the shadow of her unbelievably gorgeous best friend/soulmate Aurora. Orpheus-inspired magical realism with a grunge backdrop (one girl’s father is a clear Cobain expy).

9. Will of the Empress: The Circle Reforged-- After the events of the Circle Opens quartet, the four Circle of Magic leads are finally reunited on a trip to visit stitch-witch Sandry’s cousin, the Empress of Namorn. One of the protagonists, Daja, comes out as a lesbian in this book; recurring supporting characters Lark and Rosethorn are also confirmed to be a couple.

10. The Abyss Surrounds Us (The Abyss Surrounds Us, book 1)-- Cassandra Leung has spent her whole life training genetically engineered sea monsters to fight off pirates. But when she and her monster pup are kidnapped by pirates, she discovers that her parents’ black-and-white morality doesn’t tell the whole story. Also, relatedly, she discovers that pirates are very sexy.

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TOP TEN: SAPPHIC YA/MG CONTEMPORARIES

Getting ready for this year’s Sapphicathon with some recs posts.

1. Leah On The Offbeat: Companion to Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda, this volume follows plus-size bi girl Leah, out to her family but not her friends, dealing with (or, for most of the book, completely failing to deal with) her crush on her sort-of-friend Abby. Hit me hard in the ‘poorest person in your rich-kid high school social circle’ place.

2. How To Make A Wish: Grace’s strained relationship with her unpredictable mother is put to the test when gorgeous new girl Eva, who has recently lost her own mother, comes into their lives. Potentially triggering for folks with emotionally abusive or neglectful parents.

3. Star-Crossed: Cute middle-grade theatre kid romance. Mattie, who has previously only had crushes on boys, finds herself enamoured with glamorous new girl Gemma, who is playing Juliet in the school play.

4. A Love Story Starring My Dead Best Friend: Cass’s best friend Julia died suddenly, and the rest of her friends (more theatre kids!) want to stage her half-finished musical as a tribute. Cass feels pushed out, especially when her middle school nemesis gets cast as the lead, so she leaves with Julia’s ashes on the epic California road trip the two girls never got to take.

5. Not Otherwise Specified: Etta has never fit in with the tiny white girls in her ballet classes. Now her lesbian friends have ditched her for dating a boy. Unexpectedly, she finds a friend and ally in Bianca, a straight white girl in her ED therapy group. Potentially triggering for people who have struggled with disordered eating.

6. This Is Where It Ends: Ensemble cast featuring a lesbian couple who (spoilers) survive the book. This is a controversial book as it’s set during a school shooting and some readers find that an inappropriate subject for a YA novel, your mileage may vary. TW for violence both homophobic and in general.

7. Far From You: Recovering addict Sophie investigates the murder of her best friend Mina, which the rest of their town believes is Sophie’s fault because of a drug deal gone wrong. Twisty murder mystery and an excellent portrait of grief.

8. It’s Not Like It’s A Secret: This is billed as a sweet highschool romance between girls from wildly different cliques, and it is that, but it’s also an exploration of inter-group racism and the long-term impact of family secrets.

9. Queens of Geek: Up-and-coming actress Charlie is going to her first big convention, and she’s bringing her best friends Taylor and Jamie along. Charlie is ready to show the world she’s totally over her co-star Reese, and Taylor wants to prove that she’s the world’s biggest fan of her favourite franchise. Along the way both girls learn that their secret unrequited crushes (not on each other) aren’t as hopelessly one-sided as they thought.

10. The Brightsiders: Rock star Emmy King deals with some normal bi girl problems-- coming out, underage drinking, unhealthy relationship drama-- and some specific Rock Star problems-- relatives selling her story to the tabloid press, falling in love with her cute NB bandmate-- and drags herself out of a self-destructive spiral and into the spotlight.

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Strange Stars: Heller takes popular music seriously as a format for science fiction. This is clearly marketed as About Bowie (I believe it was released shortly after his death?) but it’s actually a broad look at the field of sci-fi music in all kinds of genres and from all over the world. Really cool and really engaging.

I’ll Be Gone In The Dark: I suspect anyone who wants to read this one has probably... already done that. Personally, I didn’t read it until after the killer in question was finally caught, so my experience of the book was different than a lot of people’s, but it’s a masterpiece regardless.

Hidden Figures: I got a better sense of the timeline from this book than I did from the film adaptation. You can go into more depth in prose form, and also profile more people. It got a little technical for me at points but was mostly still readable for those of us who never took calculus!

DWJ: Children’s Literature and the Fantastic Tradition: Shoutout to Mendlesohn for writing literally the only monograph in this field so far!  Here they pick apart several recurring themes throughout Jones’ oeuvre. I love that this book contains three distinct readings of Fire and Hemlock because uh yeah there is.... a lot to say about that book.

The Secret Loves Of Geeks: A follow-up to The Secret Loves Of Geek Girls, opening the conversation up to geeks of all genders. As cute, charming, heartwarming, tragic, awkward, and relatable as the first instalment. Can’t wait to get my hands on the upcoming Secret Loves of Geek Girls: Redux!

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Best of 2018: Adult Fiction

A Night At The Lonesome October: Fascinating meta gothic in which various recognisable figures/archetypes participate in a secretive Game to either summon or banish eldritch horrors. POV character is a dog, or at least, is currently a dog.

An Unkindness Of Ghosts: Unflinching take on the Generation Starship concept. Reminded me of Snowpiercer in tone, if Snowpiercer was full of queer disabled characters. Do not read this if you have sexual violence related triggers.

Sparkwood: Closeted bi man investigates the death of his twin brother, who appears to have been murdered by fairies. I am the exact target audience for this book and it made me soooooo happy.

The Ghost Bride: I read this when I tried and failed to do the Asian Lit Bingo (I think I finished a book and a half?) Chinese-Malaysian Li Lan finds herself wandering the afterlife after her father marries her off to a dead man.

The Secret Casebook of Simon Feximal: High-heat Victorian paranormal m/m romance. Essentially a Holmes/Watson ghost investigators AU. The premise of the book (more of a collection of shorts than a standard novel) is that these are the stories the ‘Watson’ character left out of his published works because of all the gay sex; the result reads like fanfiction of a series that doesn’t exist.

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Best of 2018: YA

Avi Cantor Has Six Months To Live: Urban fantasy starring a gay Jewish trans boy. This book captures the Depressed Teen experience so well it gave me flashbacks.

The Hate U Give: The only black girl at a prestigious private school negotiates the difference between her home and school personas when her childhood best friend is shot by a police officer. Incredibly powerful book. Lives up to the hype.

Girls Made Of Snow And Glass: Gothic snow white retelling that alternates POVs between the princess and her stepmother. If the ending doesn’t make you teary I don’t know what to tell you.

Weave A Circle Round: This was talked up to me as similar to Diana Wynne Jones, who happens to be my favourite writer of all time. That’s a super high bar to clear but Maaren manages. Delightful fantasy ideal for fans of DWJ and/or L’Engle; any more I say will be spoilers

The Suffering: GIVE ME EVERY GHOST/HUMAN ROMANCE LET ME PUT THEM IN MY BRAIN. Excellently spooky follow-up to The Girl From The Well.

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Best of 2018: Middle-Grade

The First Rule of Punk: Biracial girl with a Mexican mother and a white punk father finds a way to embrace both of those identities. The character is a zine maker and some of her zines are presented in the book, which is cute!

Jolly Foul Play/First Class Murder: These continue to be the books I wish I had had when I was about seven and super into mysteries. These particular volumes were inspired by Mean Girls and Mystery on the Orient Express.

Girl Who Drank The Moon: A book I wished I had a child of the right age to read it aloud with. Inventive and immersive fantasy about witchcraft, time, family, and prejudice.

Star-Crossed: Cute fluffy bi girl middle school theatre kid romance ahhhhhhh. So excited about the rise of queer middle-grade!

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Best Of 2018: Picture Books

For the rest of the top-five posts, my opinion is mine alone. For this particular category I take the opinions of my preschool students into account, though, and they loved these books!

Dear Vampa: A vampire child writes a letter to his grandparent about their family’s ongoing conflicts with their non-vampiric new neighbours.

Silas’ Seven Grandparents: A boy with a very large extended family can’t decide which grandparents to visit so he brings the whole group to visit him.

Meet The Latkes: A charming and funny first retelling of the Hannukah story starring a family of Latkes, including a grandfather with some very interesting ideas.

Dump Truck Duck: My favourite of the construction-themed books I looked at this year, because a) I love ducks and b) it was the only one that had female-coded construction workers/living construction vehicles, even if there aren’t female pronouns used in the writing.

Double Trouble for Anna Hibiscus: A great book for kids adjusting to having a new sibling (or, like Anna Hibiscus, two new siblings). Presented our kids, who mostly have fairly nuclear family structures, to a whole different kind of family living.

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2019 Book Bingo Challenge & January TBR

feel free to do this yourself or share/redistribute it!

the slots I’m tackling first will be A Non-Fiction Book, A Reread, and A Book Received As A Gift!

I’m at 96 books for 2018 so far, so I’m going to try my best to catch up to an even hundred before I start best-of posts.

Also doing Beat The Backlist again next year, hopefully with more long-term success than this year!

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Tentative Asian Lit Bingo TBR

Eligible books have to have an Asian author and an Asian main character/subject (see here for more details). I’m going for the leftmost column; these books might be replaced by others depending how long it takes my library holds to come in.

East Asian MC: Want, Cindy Pon

LGBTQIAP+ Asian MC: Noteworthy, Riley Redgate

SFF With Asian MC: Silver Phoenix, Cindy Pon

Graphic Novel With Asian MC: The Green Turtle Chronicles, Gene Luen Yang and Sonny Liew

Southeast Asian MC: The Ghost Bride, Yangsze Choo

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Read In February: Adult Books

Rubyfruit Jungle, Rita Mae Brown (four stars): Classic 1970s lesbian coming-of-age novel. Often groundbreaking works seem less special when viewed from a distance, once their influence has become more mainstream, but Molly Bolt has such an engaging character voice that this one is still charming.

Oscar Wilde and the Vatican Murders, Gyles Brandreth (four stars): Dipped my toe into the middle of a series here; this one was a gift and I will probably go back and start at the beginning some time. I think I need more time with the series to figure out how I feel about Brandreth’s take on Wilde and Doyle, but simply viewed as a historical mystery this one was interesting enough.

Prudence, Gail Carriger (four stars): I read this when it came out, but I devoured it so quickly that I had very little memory of it. I would suggest reading the Parasol Protectorate books before this one, I’m not sure how coherent it reads as an entry point into this world. I appreciate Carriger’s attempt at complicating the inherently imperialistic nature of her Victorian worldbuilding. She doesn’t always SUCCEED in this but it’s nice to see that she’s trying.

Maplecroft, Cherie Priest (five stars): What If Lizzie Borden Was A Lesbian Who Fought Eldritch Horrors? This is one of those ‘either you added it to your TBR as soon as you heard about it, or you never will’ books; thankfully, it lived up to the delightful premise and I can’t wait to read more from this series.

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Read in February: YA & Middle Grade

Daughters Unto Devils, Amy Lukavics (2.5 stars): Secretly-pregnant Pioneer girl sees the devil. Very few of the horror elements of this one landed for me. Unfortunately, the best thing about this one is probably the cover.

Piecing Me Together, Renee Watson: (4 stars): Jade, scholarship student and one of the only black girls at her private school, navigates the expectations of her friends, family, and Big Sisters-style mentorship program. A Problem Book (tm) with a little more nuance than I’m used to seeing in that genre.

17 & Gone, Nova Ren Suma (2.5 stars): SPOILERS FOLLOW----- I don’t care how well-researched or sympathetic a portrayal of schizophrenia it is, I will never find a “but there was nothing supernatural, actually she was just Crazy” story narratively satisfying.

Foxheart, Claire Legrand (4 stars): Young witch and her dog familiar are mentored by her time-travelling older self, trying to train her to save their world. Would be interesting to read this one alongside Girl Who Drank The Moon (which I read earlier this year), they explore some similar thematic ground.

The First Rule of Punk, Celia C. Pérez (5 stars): Really cute story of a biracial Latina girl trying to find a way to synthesise her love of punk music and her Mexican-American culture. Includes excerpts from the zines she makes throughout the story, which I loved.