YA Pride Month Picks - Comic Books

With senior year finally behind them, Cassie and her three best friends are on their way to what's next. Like their parents, the crew has always been inseparable: there's Marcy, the artist, for whom style is self-expression and sarcasm is a love language; Aaron, the future lawyer, whose good humor balances out his competitive streak; Nico, the musician, whose flirtatiousness, obliviousness, and recent interest in a rising senior are becoming increasingly...

Seventeen-year-old Mandy, who dyes her hair black and hates almost everyone, is not like her mother, the tall, sparkly alien superhero Starfire, so when someone from Starfire's past arrives, Mandy must make a choice about who she is and if she should risk everything to save her mom.

Margot, a witch, and Elena, a rock musician, are both having a bad day and emotions run high during their first encounter, which could either become the start of a new relationship or curse them both to certain doom. "Being a teenage witch -- or rock star -- is tougher than it looks! But maybe enemies can become friends... or more? Flying brooms and electric guitars set hearts aflame in this fantastically fizzy graphic novel. When Margot meets Elena,...

From Molly Knox Ostertag, writer-illustrator of the New York Times and ABA Indie bestselling The Witch Boy trilogy and The Girl from the Sea, comes a darkly beautiful story of identity, family, love, loss, and magic.

Everyone has secrets. Mags's has teeth.

Magdalena Herrera is about to graduate high school, but she already feels like an adult with serious responsibilities: caring for her ailing

...

"Ariel has dreams of leaving her southside Chicago neighborhood and making it big as a punk rocker with her best friends and bandmates, now that they've graduated from high school, but the realities of young adulthood make that challenging and strain their friendships with each other."--

"Teenager Boo has pink hair and a very vivid imagination that she has trouble separating from the real world. In her daydreams, she dances beautifully at balls or fights monsters as a magical girl. In reality, she has a complicated home life, work stress, school stress and a wicked crush on the girl of her dreams. When a new student, Mimi, arrives at school, Boo starts exploring a side of herself that she never considered before. As she grows closer...

When youre the only Black kid in the honors program or (any program) at your mostly white high school, or one of a handful of Black graduate students in your PhD program, or one of two African American women on the faculty at your Pac-10 employer, its not your gender non-conformity that sets you apart from your peers. In those environments, your Blackness is the first thing people notice about you. Still, there are other ways of being different--and...

"Becca moves to an upscale Silicon Valley suburb and is surprised when she develops a bond with girls who belong to the popular clique--and even more surprised when she learns their secrets"--

Annie is a smart, antisocial lesbian starting her senior year of high school whos under pressure to join the cheerleading squad to make friends and round out her college applications. Her former friend Bebe is a people-pleaser, a trans girl who must keep her parents happy with her grades and social life to maintain their support of her transition. Through the rigors of squad training and amped-up social pressures (not to mention microaggressions and...

"Real life isn't a fairytale. But Tié̂n still enjoys reading his favorite stories with his parents from the books he borrows from the local library. It's hard enough trying to communicate with your parents as a kid, but for Tié̂n, he doesn't even have the right words because his parents are struggling with their English. Is there a Vietnamese word for what he's going through? Is there a way to tell them he's gay?"--