The Queen Bees of Tybee County

A Chinese American tween in rural Georgia discovers who he really is through drag in Chu’s unflinching debut. The same night seventh grader Derrick Chan makes the winning shot for the junior basketball state championship, his widowed father informs him that Derrick will be spending the summer with his grandmother in tiny Heritage, Ga. Rather than the sedate elderly figure he expects, his grandmother proves a whirlwind of energy, and Derrick yearns to understand why she’s been mostly absent from his life. After befriending tough-acting Ro and shy, queer shutterbug Giles, local kids who read as white, Derrick realizes that his fascination with clothes and makeup could inform his own as-yet unrealized identity (“I just wondered if that was something most queer guys are into”). To tap into this new discovery, Ro, Giles, and his grandmother hatch an ambitious plan for Derrick to compete in a local beauty pageant in drag, but he frets about what his dad and friends back home will think. In this emotionally grounded tale about becoming one’s true self, Chu carefully balances an affirming coming-out narrative with honest, approachable accounts of familial secrets, intergenerational trauma, and systemic racism and homophobia. Ages 8–12. (Apr.)