Our Story
Once upon a time there was a little boy. This little boy
loved stories. He loved all kinds of stories: silly stories, funny stories, sad
stories, folk stories, real stories, make-up-stories, and many more kinds of
stories. All day long he loved to hear stories, tell stories, read stories, and
write stories. Every night before going to bed he needed to hear at least one
story. Through these stories he learned all about the world around him, and
about the magical world of imagination, and even about himself.
One day, as the boy went out to explore the world, he got to
see and feel so many real and fantastic things that he had only heard about in
stories. He also saw that the world he explored wasn’t always as beautiful and
exciting as the ones in his stories. At the same time, though, he saw that
there were many wonderful and magical things in the world around him that were
missing from his stories. For one thing, he saw many different kinds of love
and families that he had not read about in stories. This made him sad. Other
boys and girls – and grownups too – should be able to see all these wonderful
and fabulous things in their books and stories. So he wondered and thought and
looked…
Then one day, while reading the newspaper he found a very
interesting story. It was the story of a teacher who read a book to her class
about two princes who fall in love. The name of the book was King & King.
The boy thought that sounded like a very nice story. Sadly, however, lots of
other grownups in the school were angry at that teacher and didn’t want her
reading those kinds of stories; they thought teachers should only read stories
with one kind of family and one kind of love. The boy thought this was wrong
and silly.
Later that day the boy went to his computer and looked for
the King & King book on the internet, to see if he could find the
book. He looked and looked and finally found it! Not only that, he found that
there were other books like it! There were other books and stories that talked
about different kinds of love, different kids of families, and different kinds
of kids. How fabulous!
The boy found the one little bookstore in his big city that
had the King & King book. He went to the bookstore, found the book –
which was not very easy to find – sat down, and read it cover to cover. Then he
read it again.
Have you ever fallen in love with a book? Have you read a
book that felt like it was written all about you and just for you, and you
wanted to hug it, and hold it, and keep it close to your heart, and take it
with you everywhere go you, and show it to everyone you know? That is exactly
how the boy felt about this new book. He was in love.
That day the boy decided that he would try to find as many
books as he could that talked about different kinds of families and different
kinds of love. Not only that, he decided he wanted to share these books with
the whole world, with kids and grownups everywhere, so they could read them,
learn from them, teach them, enjoy them, and fall in love with them. And maybe,
just maybe, one day he would even sit down and write his own book…
The Beginning.
Our People
Elliot Glassenberg, the founder and director
of the LGBT Youth Literature Project, grew up in Chicago, IL, USA, loving books and stories of
all kinds. When he went to school he read as many books and stories as he
could. One day, he went to a big school in New York City where he studied all about
education and literature. Afterwards, he became a teacher and got to share all
different kinds of books and stories with his students, and also got to learn
and hear different stories from them. He still reads lots of stories and his
favorite stories are stories about love, and also stories about magic. His
email is: lgbtyouthliterature@gmail.com
.
Contact Us
To contact us please email us at lgbtyouthliterature@gmail.com.
We'd love to hear from you!.
