When Sara Katherine moved back to her hometown of Valparaiso, Indiana, from New York, she noticed a lack of support for LGBTQ youth. So she started volunteering as a mentor at a local nonprofit, chatting with queer teens who hadn’t seen LGBTQ people reflected much in media or in their community. Then she came across a resource gold mine: the Queer Liberation Library, a digital catalog of over 1,200 LGBTQ books for anyone across the country to access.
Through engaging illustrations, the story follows a child’s exploration of their shadow as neither blue nor pink, but purple. This realization helps the main character understand that they are not confined to specific gender roles. “It’s just really sweet and a great way of describing that neither-both thing that many nonbinary identities frequently experience,” said Odawnul. The hope is that young readers like her son “grow up in a world that is welcoming,” Odawnul said.