Join the Charleston County Public Library in celebrating LGBTQIA+ Pride Month throughout the month of June! Visit library branches for book displays, recommendations and more resources.
Pride Month is celebrated in June to honor the 1969 Stonewall Uprising in Manhattan. The Stonewall Uprising was a tipping point for the Gay Liberation Movement in the United States, according to the Library of Congress. What began as “Gay Pride Day” grew to a month-long event. The Library of Congress says the purpose of the commemorative month is to recognize the impact that LGBTQIA+ people have had on history locally, nationally, and internationally.
At CCPL, explore resources with NovelList Plus that includes LGBTQIA+ resources. You can also use your library card to access hoopla and explore a digital collection of LGBTQIA+ audiobooks, comics, eBooks, music and videos.
Otranto Road Library is hosting an event, "Your Pride, Your Way" where you can take pride expression photos. Chose from outdoor photos where you can pose with a flag of your choice or blacklight photos where you can use neon body paint to paint your preferred name or pronouns. This is taking place on June 20 from 3:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. for rising 6th through12th graders.
Visit our full calendar of events at /calendar for more information.
Looking for a book to read? Check out these staff recommendations!
Our CCPL Library staff have selected books for children, teens and adults in celebration of Pride Month. Check out this list below that includes books that you'll find in our collection. You can click on the book title that interests you to place a hold.
Children's Books
Strong by Eric Rosswood
An inspirational picture book memoir that follows Rob Kearney's journey to becoming the first openly gay strongman competitor, proud to wear rainbow colors.
The Meaning of Pride by Rosiee Thor
Celebrating the culture and achievements of the LGBTQ+ community, this vibrant picture book shows young readers that there are many ways to show your pride and make a difference.
This Day in June by Gayle E. Pitman
A picture book illustrating a Pride parade. The endmatter serves as a primer on LGBT history and culture and explains the references made in the story.
The Rainbow Parade by Emily Neilson
A girl recounts her first time marching with her two moms at a Pride Parade.
Julián Is a Mermaid by Jessica Love
In an exuberant picture book, a glimpse of costumed mermaids leaves one boy flooded with wonder and ready to dazzle the world.
Young Adult Books
Zenobia July by Lisa Bunker
The critically acclaimed author of Felix Yz crafts a bold, heartfelt story about a trans girl solving a cyber mystery and coming into her own. Zenobia July is starting a new life. She used to live in Arizona with her father; now she's in Maine with her aunts. She used to spend most of her time behind a computer screen, improving her impressive coding and hacking skills; now she's coming out of her shell and discovering a community of friends at Monarch Middle School. People used to tell her she was a boy; now she's able to live openly as the girl she always knew she was. When someone anonymously posts hateful memes on her school's website, Zenobia knows she's the one with the abilities to solve the mystery, all while wrestling with the challenges of a new school, a new family, and coming to grips with presenting her true gender for the first time. Timely and touching, Zenobia July is, at its heart, a story about finding home.
The Stars and the Blackness Between Them by Junauda Petrus
Told in two voices, sixteen-year-old Audre and Mabel, both young women of color from different backgrounds, fall in love and figure out how to care for each other as one of them faces a fatal illness.
Queerfuly and Wonderfully Made Edited by Leigh Finke with an introduction by Jennifer Knapp
Written by a group of queer adults, and featuring testimony from young LGBTQ+ Christians, Queerfully and Wonderfully Made looks to educate young queer people of faith and to help them stay safe, healthy, and secure.
Adult Books
County Your Lucky Stars by Alexandria Bellefleur
A wedding planner job in Seattle means a fresh start for Margot Cooper. But never did she expect her important new client's Best Woman would be the one that got away.
One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston
From the New York Times bestselling author of Red, White & Royal Blue comes a new romantic comedy that will stop readers in their tracks...For cynical twenty-three-year-old August, moving to New York City is supposed to prove her right: that things like magic and cinematic love stories don't exist, and the only smart way to go through life is alone. She can't imagine how waiting tables at a 24-hour pancake diner and moving in with too many weird roommates could possibly change that. And there's certainly no chance of her subway commute being anything more than a daily trudge through boredom and electrical failures.But then, there's this gorgeous girl on the train. Jane. Dazzling, charming, mysterious, impossible Jane. Jane with her rough edges and swoopy hair and soft smile, showing up in a leather jacket to save August's day when she needed it most. August's subway crush becomes the best part of her day, but pretty soon, she discovers there's one big problem: Jane doesn't just look like an old school punk rocker. She's literally displaced in time from the 1970s, and August is going to have to use everything she tried to leave in her own past to help her. Maybe it's time to start believing in some things, after all.Casey McQuiston's One Last Stop is a magical, sexy, big-hearted romance where the impossible becomes possible as August does everything in her power to save the girl lost in time.
Less by Andrew Sean Greer
Receiving an invitation to his ex-boyfriend's wedding, Arthur, a failed novelist on the eve of his fiftieth birthday, embarks on an international journey that finds him falling in love, risking his life, reinventing himself, and making connections with the past.
Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall
Wanted: One (fake) boyfriend Practically perfect in every way Luc O'Donnell is tangentially-and reluctantly-famous. His rock star parents split when he was young, and the father he's never met spent the next twenty years cruising in and out of rehab. Now that his dad's making a comeback, Luc's back in the public eye, and one compromising photo is enough to ruin everything. To clean up his image, Luc has to find a nice, normal relationship ... and Oliver Blackwood is as nice and normal as they come. He's a barrister, an ethical vegetarian, and he's never inspired a moment of scandal in his life. In other words: perfect boyfriend material. Unfortunately apart from being gay, single, and really, really in need of a date for a big event, Luc and Oliver have nothing in common. So they strike a deal to be publicity-friendly (fake) boyfriends until the dust has settled. Then they can go their separate ways and pretend it never happened. But the thing about fake-dating is that it can feel a lot like real-dating. And that's when you get used to someone. Start falling for them. Don't ever want to let them go.
The Pink Line: Journeys Across the World's Queer Frontiers by Mark Gevisser
A groundbreaking look at how the issues of sexuality and gender identity divide and unite the world today.
The Secret to Superhuman Strength by Alison Bechdel
From the author of Fun Home, a profoundly affecting graphic memoir of Bechdel's lifelong love affair with exercise, set against a hilarious chronicle of fitness fads in our times.
Sissy: A Coming of Gender Story by Jacob Tobia
As a young child in North Carolina, Jacob Tobia wasn't the wrong gender, they just had too much of the stuff. Barbies? Yes. Playing with bugs? Absolutely. Getting muddy? Please. Princess dresses? You betcha. Jacob wanted it all, but because they were "a boy," they were told they could only have the masculine half. Acting feminine labelled them "a sissy" and brought social isolation.
It took Jacob years to discover that being "a sissy" isn't something to be ashamed of. It's a source of pride. Following Jacob through bullying and beauty contests, from Duke University to the United Nations to the podiums of the Methodist church--not to mention the parlors of the White House--this unforgettable memoir contains multitudes. A deeply personal story of trauma and healing, a powerful reflection on gender and self-acceptance, and a hilarious guidebook for wearing tacky clip-on earrings in today's world, Sissy guarantees you'll never think about gender--both other people's and your own--the same way again.