Somewhere around ten or eleven, a child starts sorting out who they are and who they might like, and it helps enormously to see it happen on the page first. Every book here puts a queer child at the center and treats them as ordinary and whole. Some are funny, a couple are tender, and a few land hard. Pick the one that fits your child right now, not the one that comes next.
What holds this shelf together is that nobody here is a problem to be solved. These children get to be funny and brave and unsure and in love, same as any other, and the story is always a real story first. Some will make you laugh and a few will make you cry, but every one lets a queer child be the hero of their own book.