Award-winning Lesbian Young Adult Books

This is a round-up of all the award winning books about lesbians for teens for the Lambda Literary Awards (I'll add other awards later, but the Lambdas cover the Children's /YA category the longest and most consistently).

There's a list of children's picture books for lesbian families here.



Children's/ Young Adult Category, Lambda Literary Awards 

Books for lesbian teens

• Lark in the Morning by by Nancy Garden (Finalist, 1991)
• We’re Not Alone by Rik Isensee (Finalist, 1993)
• Living In Secret by Christina Salat (Finalist, 1993)
• The Cat Came Back by Hilary Mullins (Winner, 1993)
• Dive by Stacey Donovan (Finalist, 1994)
• From the Notebooks of Melanin Sun by Jacqueline Woodson (lesbian parents) (Winner, 1995)
• Good Moon Rising by Nancy Garden   (Winner, 1996)
• The House You Pass On the Way by Jacqueline Woodson (Winner, 1997)
• The Year They Burned the Books by Nancy Garden (Finalist, 1999)
• Name Me Nobody by Lois-Ann Yamanaka (Finalist, 1999)
• Dare Truth or Promise by Paula Boock (Finalist, 1999)
• Hard Love by Ellen Wittlinger (Winner, 1999)
• Empress of the World by Sara Ryan (Finalist, 2001)
• Letters in the Attic by Bonnie Shimko (Winner, 2002)
• Gravel Queen by Tea Benduhn (Finalist, 2003)
• Keeping You A Secret by Julie Anne Peters (Finalist, 2003)
• Rosemary and Juliet by Judy MacLean (Finalist 2004)
• Orphea Proud by Shannon Dennis Wyeth (Finalist 2004 - but very poorly reviewed)
• Erik & Isabelle: Junior Year at Foresthill High by Kim Wallace (Finalist, 2006)
• Between Mom and Jo by Julie Anne Peters (Finalist, 2006)
• Love & Lies: Marisol's Story by Ellen Wittlinger (Sequel to Hard Love) (Finalist, 2008)
• Ash by Malinda Lo (Finalist, 2009) [Review]
• Wildthorn  by Jane Eagland (Winner, 2010)

GLBTQ Nonfiction and anthologies

• When Someone You Know Is Gay by Susan and Daniel Cohen  (Finalist, 1989)
• Growing Up Gay edited by Bennett L. Singer (Finalist, Anthology category, 1993)
• Two Teenagers in 20: Writings by Gay and Lesbian Youth (Transworld) edited by Ann Heron (Alyson) (Finalist, 1994)
• Am I Blue?: Coming Out from the Silence edited by Marion Dane Bauer (HarperChildren’s) (Winner, 1994) (Also: Literature winner, Stonewall Book Awards, 1995)
• Passages of Pride by Kurt Chandler (Finalist, 1995)
• Free Your Mind: The Book for Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Youth and Their Allies by Ellen Bass & Kate Kaufman (Finalist, 1996)
• The World Out There: Becoming Part of the Lesbian and Gay Community by Michael Thomas Ford (Finalist, 1996)
• The Shared Heart: Portraits and Stories Celebrating Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Young People by Adam Mastoon (Finalist, 1998)
• OutSpoken: Role Models from the Lesbian and Gay Community by Michael Thomas Ford (Finalist, 1998)
• Queer 13: Lesbian And Gay Writers Recall Seventh Grade edited by Clifford Chase (Finalist, 1998)
• Telling Tales Out of School by Kevin Jennings (Winner, 1998)
• The Full Spectrum: A New Generation of Writing About Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning, and Other Identities by David Leviathan & Billy Merrel (Winner, 2006)

Other Awards (non-GLBTQ)
Most books in this category pre-date the 'main' awards for queer books, which is why they don't appear in the Lamdba or Stonewall posts.

• Annie on My Mind by Annie Garden (Various awards, ALA Best Books)
• Review and award list
• Skim by Mariko & Jillian Tamaki (Various awards, ALA Best Books)
•  Review and award list

Further Reading

• The Award-winning LGBT books page
• The overview of the Lambda award categories
• The Lambda Literary Awards by year
• The Young Adult lesbian books page
• All young adult reviews and the full list of lesbian YA Fiction
• The list of Transgender Young Adult Fiction