King and the Dragonflies is the story of Kingston “King” James, a middle schooler in rural Louisiana who is grappling with the death of his older brother, Khalid. “I really wanted to tackle a lot of issues that black queer people experience when it comes to the intersection of having to deal with both racism and homophobia,” they say. 4), had a simple genesis: Over dinner, the author and their editor realized they couldn’t think of any middle-grade books with a gay black boy as the protagonist.
Kacen Callender’s new novel, King and the Dragonflies (Scholastic, Feb.
