Rainbow Reads Youth Giving Library

Rainbow Reads Youth Giving Library Rainbow Reads Youth Giving Library holds LGBTQIA+ centered stories and histories. Board books to YA.

Our local Pride group, Leavenworth Family Pride, recently hosted a writer's workshop sponsored by the American Humanist ...
05/07/2026

Our local Pride group, Leavenworth Family Pride, recently hosted a writer's workshop sponsored by the American Humanist Association and led by local author Becca Coffindaffer. I am much more of a reader than a writer, but I still found the workshop to be fun, insightful, and instructive. Becca's newest release, The Bloody and the Damned, was also our monthly book club read, and one of our members Skye wrote up this lovely review on Reddit. Here's what Skye had to say about this dystopian YA offering (shared with permission. Thanks, Skye!):

The Bloody and the Damned by Becca Coffindaffer. Enby assassin loses their sisters, religious battles ensue.

Pick this up!

I admittedly just went to a workshop the author did and got my book signed, but I don't think I even went in with much bias. YA fantasy/dystopia can be serviceable for me, but rarely particularly memorable. Even the title is something that probably would've ever kept me from picking it up if my book club hadn't picked it due to the workshop.

Our protagonist is a badass - a morally complicated badass who leaves the scenes of their jobs with so much carnage people literally go "S**t, Val," but also has so much care for the people they love that surely, the narrative suggests to you, maybe being an assassin isn't so bad. Until you see the effects that even nameless, "bad guy" killing has not only on a person, but on how the people they care about see them as well. Val tries to separate this by creating a persona as "The Butcher," but that hardly cushions the blow of seeing your sibling, or childhood friend, try to smile or reassure you with a mutilated co**se they're responsible for, not too far off in the distance.

The characters are quick-witted with one another, and have their own understandable upsets without devolving too much into teen angst. It doesn't read much like YA, but only in positive ways - there's no high school drama, only a smidge of hints of romance, the characters act realistically their age + living in a dystopia (that's not too far from where they are now). And along the journey we've got some gory fight scenes, Evangelion-esque religious symbolism, climate change...

Basically this book is so much more than its title would imply and anyone who's looking for:

Q***r rep/Protagonists

YA without excessive romance or s*x (none at all here)

Sci-fi/fantasy

Exploration/unpacking of religious and familial trauma

can find something here!

The Crownchaser Duology by Becca Coffindaffer follows Alyssa Farshot of the Faroshti lineage as she reluctantly particip...
04/16/2026

The Crownchaser Duology by Becca Coffindaffer follows Alyssa Farshot of the Faroshti lineage as she reluctantly participates in the Crownchase- a race to find a hidden royal seal that will determine which of the Empire's eligible families will be next to rule.

Alyssa doesn't want to be an empress. After everything the throne has cost her, she wants no part of it, and would rather be flying (literally) by the seat of her pants and exploring the far reaches of space. But a promise to her uncle and a fear of what may happen under the wrong ruler drives Alyssa to search for the seal.

What begins as a chase for the crown quickly becomes complicated with interfering forces working to steer the outcome of the pursuit and fate of the empire. Over the two books, there are moments of victory and loss, confusion and clarity, humor and heartache.

I don't want to give away too much; the unfolding of Farshot’s journey contributed greatly to my enjoyment of this duology. But I can say that these books have a lot to offer. The action kept the momentum going but there were lighter moments to take a break from the go-go-go and focus on the characters. Plenty of Q***r rep, (no distinctly articulated Trans characters but gender variance was present) largely as part of world building that included a wide array of humanoid species.

The world building was integrated into the story naturally and did not feel like reading an index, which is one of my pet peeves with sci-fi/fantasy. The cast of characters from book one each felt like familiar, distinct personalities as the second book began.

I wouldn't recommend this to anyone who doesn't want to commit to both books, as the first doesn't leave you on a huge cliffhanger, but clearly Alyssa's journey isn't over. But if a short series doesn’t intimidate and space is your jam, this YA offering may be right for you!

Like so many stories we've shared here, this is a beautiful embodiment of the phrase, "We are the ones we have been wait...
04/09/2026

Like so many stories we've shared here, this is a beautiful embodiment of the phrase, "We are the ones we have been waiting for."

Thank you Don Martin for writing this for yourself and for every other child that needed to see themself in this book.

Schuyler Bailar, author of Obie is Man Enough and He/She/They, still out there living his best life. So happy for him!
04/07/2026

Schuyler Bailar, author of Obie is Man Enough and He/She/They, still out there living his best life. So happy for him!

Today is the Trans Day of Visibility as well as the end of the Trans Rights Readathon. It is not enough for Trans folks ...
03/31/2026

Today is the Trans Day of Visibility as well as the end of the Trans Rights Readathon.

It is not enough for Trans folks to be visible. They must be known. The orchestrated effort to villainize and demonize this community has done serious, deadly harm.

If your primary or only understanding of Transgender people is from those that deny their basic humanity or rights, I challenge you to educate yourself. Watch the documentary Discolsure. Accept that you probably have interacted with or known a Trans person at least once in your life, and just didn't know it. Listen to the testimonies of the Trans community and lawmakers when they are speaking out for their deserved place and rights in our communities. Get to know someone who is Trans.

In the meantime, read books by and about Trans people. Here is a collection put together by We Need Diverse Books, or you can look the posts here from previous Trans Rights Readathons, or check out the TRR website's Masterlist (link in comments.)
If your loved one or someone you know is Trans, I hope these books will help you become a better advocate and ally for your loved one and the Trans community as a whole.

If you are Trans, I can only hope that these books help you feel seen, validated, valued, loved, and not alone.

As Trans Rights Readathon 2026 comes to an end, I wanted to share one more book that moved me this year. 'never a girl, ...
03/30/2026

As Trans Rights Readathon 2026 comes to an end, I wanted to share one more book that moved me this year.

'never a girl, always a boy' by Jo Ivester is the account of Jo's son Jeremy's transgender journey. This memoir is told from not just Jo's perspective, but by Jeremy, his parents, siblings, and their spouses. Drawing from their collected memories of Jeremy as a supposed 'tomboy' in his youth, struggles with health, school, and feeling uncomfortable in his body, as well as video footage Jeremy created as part of his transition experience, this memoir shows a family that is full of love and acceptance but also admitted confusion and rigidity at points.

The result feels incredibly honest and vulnerable, encouraging and affirming. Though Jeremy was fortunate to have a family already supportive of the LGBTQIA+ community, they nonetheless had moments of growth and taking account of their assumptions and missteps.

As usual, I listened to the audiobook version of this work, and appreciated that each segment of the book was read by Jo, Jeremy, and the other family members that contributed. This produced a less polished result as they are not professional narrators, but that seemed a small sacrifice to hear Jeremy tell his story in his own voice and feel the emotions of all those involved as they spoke.

I would recommend this to families that are struggling to either accept or understand their LGBTQIA+ loved one, or for those who feel they are struggling to accept or understand their own journey to embracing their full, true selves.

If you spend any time in LGBTQIA+ digital spaces, chances are you've heard of Andrea Gibson. Andrea was a prolific and m...
03/27/2026

If you spend any time in LGBTQIA+ digital spaces, chances are you've heard of Andrea Gibson.

Andrea was a prolific and moving poet and activist until their death in July of 2025. They wielded words with exacting sharpness and tender vulnerability in equal measure, exploring a wide range of topics.

Ultimately their work, to me, is a deeply moving examination of the undeniable power of love and the beauty of being human, even against the coldest, most brutal hate. I am particularly fond of Andrea's ability to insert moments of levity exactly when needed, a reminder to not take ourselves too seriously, and that joy is essential.

Lord of the Butterflies is the first collection of Andrea's poems I read, but I encourage you to check out any or all of them.

And, if you are like me and occasionally like to inflict yourself with a punch to the heart, you can watch Come See Me in the Good Light, which follows Andrea's navigation of their terminal cancer diagnosis with partner and fellow poet Megan Falley.

For more information about any of Andrea's works, visit https://andreagibson.org/

A common component of current anti-Trans sentiment is framing being Transgender as some new-fangled fad that is being tr...
03/23/2026

A common component of current anti-Trans sentiment is framing being Transgender as some new-fangled fad that is being tried on and played with by folks who just want to be edgy or trendy. As if people would subject themselves to the rejection, scrutiny, and violence all too frequently meted out just to satisfy some superficial curiosity or to follow along with peers.

This not only minimizes and trivializes the experiences of Trans folk, which is bound to happen when you don't take the care to listen to and believe their experiences. It also blatantly ignores that humans have been examining the gender expectations handed to them without consent, and rejecting them, in part or in whole, throughout human history.

Before Gender by Eli Erlick highlights the lives of 30 Trans people from 1850-1950. While this collection of stories reveals opposing forces and arguments that are still prominent today, it also reveals that Transgender people led full, joyous, meaningful, ordinary lives long before the word Transgender existed, and without waiting for permission.

I'll add a post shared by the author about the book in the comments.

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/189uvKHumx/

Gender Q***r: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe is a vulnerable and moving autobiography presented as a graphic novel. Maia, who u...
03/21/2026

Gender Q***r: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe is a vulnerable and moving autobiography presented as a graphic novel. Maia, who uses e/em/eir pronouns, began this work to help explain eir nonbinary and as*xual identity to eir family.

Originally published in 2019, this book, which now has a deluxe and annotated versions available, is both an Alex Award Winner and a Stonewall Honor book. It is also one of the most, if not the most banned book in the United States.

The book covers Maia's journey of wrestling with elements of emself that seemed contradictory or confusing through a cis-het lens, to a place of seeing and understanding emself as a unique, whole individual, and as part of a community taking a similar journey.

Maia notes in the Afterword that the work felt like sharing what were once some of eir 'deepest, darkest secrets,' but which in the light of publication realized 'they are just different aspects of being human.'

This book does contain brief depictions of s*xuality, which is why the book is so frequently banned. Taken in the context of the nature of the work and even the instances alone make it clear however that the inclusion is not to titillate the reader but as an honest part of Maia's experiences of self-discovery.

This book is for an older YA/ new adult audience but I would personally find appropriate for any reader old enough to receive high school appropriate s*x education. And to be clear, while these elements of the work may be what bans focus on, it is not the primary focus of the book.

Readers are invited in to some of Maia's most personal, painful, and joyful moments, giving some the opportunity to learn and understand, and others the invitation to or confirmation of their own journey.

Address

720 Shawnee Street
Leavenworth, KS
66048

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Monday 11am - 9pm
Tuesday 11am - 6pm
Wednesday 11am - 9pm
Thursday 11am - 6pm
Friday 11am - 9pm
Saturday 11am - 9pm
Sunday 1pm - 6pm

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+19135476818

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