What You Don't Know (A Story of Liberated Childhood)

FEATURED IN MS. MAGAZINE'S "15 BOOKS FOR KIDS THAT PROVE YOU CAN BE A FEMINIST AT ANY AGE"

Anastasia Higginbotham's What You Don't Know: A Story of Liberated Childhood delves into queerness, Blackness, and the love that dismantles whiteness.

It’s a book about knowing deeply that you matter—always did, always will. It’s a book about what schools get wrong and churches don’t say; but institutions are made by people and the people are evolving. It’s a book about being known and cherished by family, and living in communion with your own personal Jesus, Buddha, Spirit, Source, Father, Mother, God, breath, inner space, outer space, nothingness, and however else we name and relate to our divinity and humility in the presence of all we don’t know.

Most children, gay or not, in or out, are sure to find themselves within these pages. The message that “all you need is to be you” will stay with readers long after the last page, in a book for LGBTQIA+ collections and beyond. —SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL

Higginbotham manages to acknowledge the bias that Demetrius faces, put the emphasis on the love he receives, and make him an empowered and confident protagonist who is grateful for help but not a passive victim. —MOMBIAN

I think the days of Heather Has Two Mommies are long past. We're ready for GLBTQIA+ stories for kids that are a little bit complicated and a little bit interesting and a whole lotta fantastic. For all this, the person you turn to is Anastasia Higginbotham. —BETSY BIRD, Collection Development Manager of the Evanston Public Library