To try and find some good teens books that don't push the LGBTQ agenda?

[Lifeofthepartay]

Trying to get some books for my daughter who is in S1, books are either too young or they all have a blurb that alludes to the main character's sexual preferences. Would love it if anyone could recommend something your pre-teens, or young teens are reading that don't include those topics? They already get enough information about it in school and the internet.

Some authors I loved as a young teen/pre teen in the early 90s not sure what is popular me aside from Harry Potter:

Cynthia Voigt
Jean Ure
Robert Westall
Antonia Forest (the Marlowe family/Kingscote ones)
Monica Dickens
Anne Digby
Malorie Blackman
Noel Streatfield (there is a lesbian couple in Ballet Shoes but as a child it went right over my head, it's very subtle, barely even hinted at)
Rumer Godden
Judy Blume
William Mayne
Bernard Ashley
Catherine Robinson (her Lizzie Oliver books, there were two, are out of print now but sometimes eBay can come up with the goods). She has done some more recent ones too which are brilliant!
Penelope Lively
Geraldine Kaye

Regarding Jacqueline Wilson, before her Tracey
Beaker era, she wrote some v good young adult books in the 70s/80s. Gritty and real life but not at all preachy, no agendas .

Katya Balen - October, October or The Light In Everything
Hannah Gold - The Last Bear
Phil Earle - When the Sky Falls
Robin Stevens - Murder Most Unladylike series
Katherine Rundell - The Explorers
A.M Dassu - Fightback
Elle McNicol - A Kind of Spark (and lots of her other books)
Tom Palmer - D-Day Dog (and pretty much all of his)

basically, “middle grade” authors, writing for years 5-8. There’s lots. Some will have a gay character, because if they are reflecting life in 2024 some people will be out. But romance and sexuality are rarely key themes of books aimed at children under year 8.

No, I am heterosexual, and I chose the content I want my kid to be exposed to, the same way I chose what she watches on TV, and what she eats, she will get to an age that she can choose herself. Like I explained above repeatedly, I am the one that prefers that she is not exposed to so much information, and feels pressure about identifying as anything in particular.

Jane Austen
The Bronte Sisters
Georgette Heyer
Jean Plaidy
Katherine Paterson
Ann Pilling
Lois Lowry (Number the Stars is especially brilliant)
Gina Wilson
Joan Lingard (Kevin and Sadie series especially)
Jenny Asher
Jean Richardson
Adele Geras

To be fair to the OP, having poked through the YA bit in various bookshops and libraries recently I completely know what she means. I have a 13yo avid reader who doesn't care about people being gay (or straight - he just has no interest in those plotlines 😂), but he will eyeroll at the every-second-character-is-trans stuff. Interestingly he and his male peers seem pretty eye rolly about it all generally. So I'm watching this thread with interest. Basically anything more than ten years old is a pretty safe bet. He's spent the last year ploughing through the whole Percy Jackson universe for example.

I also think there's an interesting trend re children / teen literature generally - it seems to have become really preachy in an almost Victorian way.

Trans and queer people exist and always have done, get over it.

It sounds like she’s most likely to feel pressure to identity as heterosexual based on your filtering.

I'd recommend things like

The Hobbit
His Dark Materials
The Inheritance Trilogy

And some of the classics:
Wuthering Heights
Oliver Twist
Jane Eyre
Black Beauty
The Railway Children

My kids loved the Greek Myths at 11 (as a I've said) but there's definitely homosexuality there! And there's a couple of more modern series that involve relationships, including LGTBQ+ ones, that aren't central but are definitely feature. Percy Jackson is a brilliant series, for example, but has at least one gay character.

I knew I was bisexual when I was around 5. Books didn't teach that to me. When I was 8 I was reading Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. By 11 I was very into Lord of the Rings.

Funnily, I wasn't offended by the heterosexual relationships. Frankly, it's a bit strange that you think a book might place ideas in your child's head; you know sexuality doesn't work like that, right? I had a book crush on Cathy and Heathcliff. If your child is not straight, you filtering her reading material won't change that, and it's a bit weird you think it might.

Maybe you should ask your "gay friends" about it.

It's odd that you feel the need to filter your child's content to such a degree in a way that pushes one sexuality over others. Your posts are definitely homophobic.

Also worth saying that the issue seems to be you’ve look at young adult books, not middle grade. If you want books aimed at year 9 and above (so S3), most young adult books are for them or there’s another post 16 group of YA books. If you want “young but complex” books, look at middle grade books.

At that age I loved reading Agatha Christie 😂 Also stuff like Brave New World, Of Mice and Men, Catcher in the Rye, TKA Mockingbird etc.

Definitely Dark is Rising and also the Earthsea books. Roald Dahl's books Boy and Going Solo. Alan Garner. Children's classics like Watership Down, 101 Dalmatians, Swallows and Amazons.

I agree about Anne of Green Gables; fantastic writing!

I think this whole post has an agenda, definitely seems homophobic. Plenty of books out there for teens with no LGBT representation so I can't imagine it was a genuine question.

Not everyone wants their kids to read about it, get over it.

It's goady and it's blatant. No one could lack self awareness to this degree. Even the fact OP mentions these "gay friends" of hers.

Aye. Sure she does. Bet Farage is best mates with the local imam, too.

Thanks all for your fab suggestions, that should give us enough options for a while 👌

I don't think the op wants those books either- anything specifically and awkwardly forcing sexuality

At that age and in their early teens, my DDs loved books by -

Sharon Creech
Avi
Karen Cushman
Karen Hesse
E.L. Konigsburg
Kate di Camillo
Patricia MacLachlan
Linda Sue Park
E.B. White

The 'Nicholas' books by Goscinny and Sempe.

Maybe some of these are more familiar to American readers than British? They may be available on Amazon UK.

I remember myself as an avid young reader blazing through the funny works of P.G. Wodehouse, an anthology of witty articles from The Times by Patrick Campbell (may be out of print), all the Anne of Green Gables books, 'Rosie is my Relative', and other titles by Gerald Durrell, and I loved Agatha Christie.

I also got into biographies and autobiographies, historical/ music/ general pop culture.

Do they have to be real world? Terry Pratxchett, Brendan Sanderson fantasy fiction is ace

Exactly 💯 but wow! people here seem VERY interested in kids reading about sexual preferences from such a young age and extremely upset when a parent won't allow it 🤣

Thanks will check these out

Just a last piece of propaganda….

Like a pp, I also knew i was bisexual early, around 6. Though i didn’t have words for it.

by 9, having had no external mirror I started to become aware it was seen as ‘wrong’

by 12 I had consciously put it in a black box and tried to become straight. At the same time I developed anxiety which persisted through my teens and until I’d had a few years counselling as an adult.

it affected all my relationships- with boys too, because of the need to repress that I presumed. And also friendships due to the anxiety.

don’t assume that awarenesss of orientation doesn’t start until puberty. Or that keeping her on the straight path in terms of exposure now doesn’t do damage.

the world still has a lot of homophobia. Which is probably why some literature tries to deshame it.

What path is that?