Banana Menorah Launch
My 8th book, the picture book BANANA MENORAH published last month, and I had a wonderful time at Pages, my local indie bookstore where I was one of two authors they hosted for the Manhattan Beach holiday pier lighting celebration. There were live reindeer, letters to Santa, and me! Since it’s also holiday-themed, Pages had copies of my RED AND GREEN AND BLUE AND WHITE. One of my favorite parts of the event was talking with the little kids, explaining that I wrote both books and they were illustrated by two different people, and that one book was heartfelt and the other was silly.

Could they tell me which book was the silly one? Every kiddo got it right. The four-year old pictured above explained, when I asked how they knew, “there’s a banana with candles in it.” Smart kiddo!

As I write this, it’s Hanukkah, and yes, we’re making a point to use an actual banana as a menorah tonight!

End of the Year Lists
The end of the calendar year is when a lot of “best of” and “great books” lists happen. This is always pretty fraught, because of course everyone author and illustrator wants our books to be included. Often, they’re not, and it’s hard to not take it personally (I’m working on it.) Happily, I’ve figured out that each book needs just three great things to vet it, and once I’ve got three, everything else is gravy. Extra. Delightful, but no longer an anxiety-provoking need. Once I have three things, I tell myself I can relax. And I’m grateful to have more than three for both books that came out in 2025, LIKE THAT ELEANOR and BANANA MENORAH.

With that preamble, I was really happy to find my books on some year-end lists:

LIKE THAT ELEANOR was featured in Betsy Bird’s Fuse 8 School Library Journal blog’s Great books with a message (social emotional learning), where she called it “probably the best book on allyship I’ve seen in a picture book format to date.”

LIKE THAT ELEANOR was featured in Kirkus Reviews Best Books of 2025 Indie List!

BANANA MENORAH was featured in another of Betsy Bird’s Fuse 8 School Library Journal blog’s year-end great books lists, Transcendent Holiday Children’s Books, where she cheered it saying ”not only is this Hanukkah title hilarious, it felt weirdly, amazingly real.”

BANANA MENORAH was featured in Publisher Weekly’s Kids’ Books That Highlight the ‘Holy’ in ‘Holiday’, where they described it this way: “imagination and resilience meet up in a story of faith overcoming obstacles.”

Copy Edits Complete
I’ve combined the November and December 2025 updates into this one post, partly because over the last few months (in addition to my day job) I’ve been working on edits to A DIFFERENT KIND OF ENEMY, the sequel to A DIFFERENT KIND OF BRAVE. This is my Gay Teen Action Adventure Romance series, an homage and critique of James Bond movies, and I’m so excited about this second book starring Nico and Sam as they navigate their love and try to save the world! As I write this, I’m printing out a hard copy of the completed manuscript, all copy edits addressed and ready to send to my editor in the morning. The cover will be revealed in January, so stay tuned for that!

Interviews and Podcasts
Catch up with these fun conversations I had:

Lori Snyder’s Lee Wind’s 3 Questions on the Splendid Mola Substack, where, as Lori puts it, I talk “a lot about trusting ourselves.”

An interview over at Words & Money about the Freedom to Read and We Are Stronger Than Censorship.

A conversation on “The Best and Worst Book Marketing Strategies” for the podcast Inside Independent Publishing with IBPA.

I was also a guest on the People’s Guide to Publishing podcast, talking about the new stickers we’re doing in partnership with Microcosm to support We Are Stronger Than Censorship.

I also hosted a few panel conversations for EveryLibrary during Banned Books Week, including Publishing in the Storm with Jason Low (Lee & Low), Cheryl and Wade Hudson (Just Us Books), and Antonio Gonzalez Cerna (Levine Querido); Freedom-to-Read Picture Books for Kids, with Sarah Hoffman and Ian Hoffman (authors of Jacob’s Missing Book), Chris Case (illustrator of Jacob’s Missing Book), and Jan Zauzmer (author of Down with Lime Books); and Contested Classics with Dr. Michelle Parrinello-Cason and Dr. Amanda Barton, editors of new annotated editions of some classics that were challenged back in their day (and still are challenged today) including Frankenstein and The Great Gatsby.

Good News About Diverse Books for Kids and Teens
With diverse books under attack across the country, it was great to see this report on a survey of 4,000 high school teachers where 95% of them agreed that it is “important for children to study diverse literature, that students can build positive self-esteem by seeing themselves in diverse literature, and that reading diverse literature facilitates understanding of diverse perspectives and can increase awareness about important social issues.” That’s according to “The State of Literature Use in U.S. Secondary English Classrooms,” released in July, but I just caught up to it when PW reported on it in October.

Book Recommendations
So this blog/website started back in 2007. I called it “I’m Here. I’m Queer. What the Hell Do I Read?” and have kept the name, even as the number of books with Queer content for kids and teens exploded past the point where I could even imagine being comprehensive. Now, I just recommend books I love. Books for kids and teens (and the occasional book for adults that’s good for teens too) with Queer content, themes, creators, or that just blew me away…

My recommendations this Nov-Dec are:

Tales from Beyond the Rainbow: Ten LGBTQ+ Fairy tales proudly reclaimed, collected and adapted by Pete Jordi Wood – loved the whole idea, and really appreciated the backmatter explaining the origin of each retelling. Nice that each story had it’s own illustrator too!

Harriet Tubman: Live in Concert by Bob the Drag Queen. I listened to the audiobook of this one (narrated by the author, of course) and it was fascinating, chance-taking, and compelling. I was inspired by it as a work of literary art that was entertaining and thought-provoking!

A World Worth Saving by Kyle Lukoff. I listened to the audiobook of this middle grade novel as well – perfectly narrated by Will Malloy. There was so much I loved about this book! The Trans hero. The Jewish mysticism. The wisdom the main character A (and by proxy, we readers) gain about so much. Even how the audiobook handled avoiding deadnaming any character. And the fact that it’s this incredible adventure story! Brilliant.

In this season of holiday celebrations, I want to thank you for being in community with me—that’s the best gift of all.

The light in me recognizes and acknowledges the light in you,
Lee