New List to Highlight Quality LGBT Books

by Dana Rudolph · 2010-06-03 06:05:00 UTC
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The American Library Association last week announced the official launch of its “Over the Rainbow” Committee, which will create an annual bibliography of “titles of interest to adult readers that reflect lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer (LGBTQ) experiences.”

Oh, good. Because there are only so many times I can read Rubyfruit Jungle.

Joking aside, it is a positive and welcome sign that the ALA sees fit not only to publish a list of LGBT-inclusive books, but to prepare to do so every year.

The Committee is an outgrowth of the Rainbow List Committee that launched in 2008 with the aim of creating such a bibliography for readers under 18 years of age. Unlike the lists of LGBT-inclusive children’s books often compiled by LGBT-rights organizations, the Rainbow List is selective, not comprehensive, with the books chosen for quality as well as LGBT content. (As a long-time reviewer of LGBT children’s books, I can confirm there are many earnest LGBT-inclusive books whose literary — and sometimes mere grammatical — merit leaves much to be desired.)

The Rainbow List is, however, not an ultra-exclusive list like the Lambda Literary Awards or the ALA’s own Stonewall Book Awards, which highlight only the very top books. Rather, it — and the Over the Rainbow List for older readers — will be a guide to recommended books for librarians, bookstore managers, and readers.

One of the problems for librarians in finding good LGBT-inclusive books is that the cataloguing headings assigned to books by the Library of Congress do not always indicate LGBT content. So says Nel Ward, former head of the Rainbow List project and now member of the Over the Rainbow Committee. (I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing her three times about the Rainbow Lists, most recently earlier this year.)

The Committee is currently seeking recommended fiction and nonfiction titles "of sufficiently high quality" for the 2010 list. They must have been published between July 2009 and December 2010, be suitable for adult readers, “show a positive view toward the LGBTQ community,” and “provide significant LGBTQ content, although the primary focus of the book need not be LGBTQ.”

The first ALA Over the Rainbow Books list will be announced in January 2011.

Photo credit: Matt Hampel

Dana Rudolph is the founder and publisher of Mombian, a blog and resource directory for LGBT parents.
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