The Lerner Blog

When Claudia Jones goes missing, her classmates think the worst . . . or at least the weirdest. It couldn’t be an alien abduction, right? Eisner-nominated cartoonist MariNaomi looks at the perils of teenage life—including possible otherworldly disappearances.

Big, small, curly, straight, loud, quiet, smooth, wrinkly. Lovely explores a world of differences that all add up to the same thing: we are all lovely!

Downloadable Teaching Resource

Growing up on Chicago’s South Side, Michelle LaVaughn Robinson loved school and her family. Driven by her parents’ passion for education and her own desire to succeed, she graduated first from Princeton and then Harvard Law School and landed a job at a prestigious law firm, where she met her soon-to-be husband, Barack Obama. While raising their two young daughters, Michelle Obama committed herself to public service. She kept that commitment as her husband’s political career soared and worked hard to continue serving the public when her family landed in the White House. Follow Obama’s journey from Chicago school kid to history-making First Lady and beyond as she continues to make her mark as an inspiring speaker, bestselling author, and agent for positive change.

Explore powerful moments in sports that made an impact on human rights, including Muhammad Ali’s stand against the Vietnam War, Colin Kaepernick’s protests supporting Black Lives Matter, the US gymnastics team’s testimony empowering women to speak out about sexual abuse, and more.

“History” sounds really official. Like it’s all fact. Like it’s definitely what happened.But that’s not necessarily true. History was crafted by the people who recorded it. And sometimes, those historians were biased against, didn’t see, or couldn’t even imagine anyone different from themselves.

That means that history has often left out the stories of LGBTQIA+ people: men who loved men, women who loved women, people who loved without regard to gender, and people who lived outside gender boundaries. Historians have even censored the lives and loves of some of the world’s most famous people, from William Shakespeare and Pharaoh Hatshepsut to Cary Grant and Eleanor Roosevelt.

Join author Lee Wind for this fascinating journey through primary sources—poetry, memoir, news clippings, and images of ancient artwork—to explore the hidden (and often surprising) Queer lives and loves of two dozen historical figures.

Nate loves aliens and he really wants to wear an alien costume for Purim, but his friends are all dressing as superheroes and he wants to fit in. What will he do? With the help of his two dads he makes a surprising decision.

Colin wants out of the Contest. But the prize money would help his transgender sister afford surgery. Can Colin find out what the Benefactor is really up to without ruining his chances to win the Contest?

Ruth’s story is fiction, but The Green Book and its role in helping a generation of African American travelers is historical fact. Can Ruth’s family finally make a safe journey from Chicago to Alabama?

Downloadable Teaching Resource

Becoming sexually involved with another person is a big step in your life. It’s something to think about on your own long before you have to make a decision with anyone, even the partner you love deeply. It is probably one of the most important decisions you’ll ever make. Sixty-seven percent of sexually experienced teens say they wish they had waited longer before having sexual intercourse. Through case studies and information from experts, Safe Sex 101 provides the overview teens need to understand abstinence, contraception, sexually transmitted diseases, and unplanned pregnancies, and how these can affect their lives.