YA novels’ treatment of sexual identity and faith

Here’s an essay that resonated in my dual capacities of aspiring youth librarian and administrative coordinator of Religious Explorations for a Unitarian Universalist church. For School Library Journal, contributor Robert Bittner discusses young adult (YA) novels’ treatment of LGBTQ youth and faith. He argues that the “either/or” nature of many of these books “creates an unhelpful dichotomy between those who are queer and those who are Christian (or, in some ways, spiritual in any sense of the word).” He articulates a need for YA books that depict an ability for sexual identity to co-exist with faith.