Welcome to Rainbow Crate – Custom Queer book goodies delivered every month!
STATUS 4/1/2021: March boxes have all shipped. April boxes are scheduled to ship on time (the week of April 18th).
Supscription spots are full, so We are CURRENTLY ON A WAITLIST SYSTEM. PLEASE EMAIL WAITLIST@RAINBOWCRATEBOOKBOX.COM AND YOU WILL BE AUTOMATICALLY ADDED to the waitlist and contacted when a spot becomes available. THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONTINUED SUPPORT! WE COULDN’T DO THIS WITHOUT YOU!
A brand-new lgbt+ book box
Hi! We are Jamie and Danielle – an artist and a librarian by trade!
We, like a lot of you, love love love book boxes. But we had come to notice that it seemed like queer fictional couples (even main couples) were being overlooked in favor of straight ones in. We looked and looked for a queer subscription box, but while there are a lot of great boxes, there just wasn’t one focused on lgbt+ lit.
So, we started to toss around the idea of creating our own box. A book box seemed kind of daunting. It would be a LOT of work (we had no idea how much, but we do now). What if we did all this and nobody cared?
But the thing is…. we just love love love queer books. We want to read them. We want to see merchandise featuring queer pairs (of all sorts!!). We want to make people excited to open a box and (hopefully) love all of the things that we lovingly curated inside. And so, we talked about it. We asked around in book communities. We got a mentor . And ultimately, we decided that we had to give it a shot. Nobody else was going to! And so… here we are!
This is THAT queer book box that we wanted!
Photo of our June 2020 Crate courtesy of seahorsestories.
Photo of our July 2020 Crate courtesy of rainbowbooksandbeyond.
Photo of our June 2020 tumbler and chopstick set courtesy of awildbooknerdappeared.
Photo courtesy of anxious.librarian.
what is a book box?
A book box is a subscription service where subscribers receive a box, usually monthly, containing a new-release book and book-related goodies! Most boxes are limited in quantity, and once that box is gone, it’s gone. Genres and age ranges of the book vary depending on the box (in case you haven’t guessed, we are only doing books with major queer characters in them! More about that later this week!). The goodies made for that month’s box are curated by the box, and not available for sale any other way. Most boxes have between 3-5 goodies in addition to the featured book of the month, and all of them relate to a theme.
Photo of our August crate courtesy of obscure.pages.
Photo of our Timekeeper pin from the September Crate courtesy of Manicfemme.
Photo of our September book and metalmark courtesy of Merrowchild.
Photo of our OCTOBER 2020 DARIUS THE GREAT IS NOT OKAY GLASS MUG courtesy of awildbooknerdappeared.
the MAY 2021 theme (WAITLIST OPEN now!):
“You’re Not In This Alone.“
“April showers bring May flowers” is how the saying goes. This is true also for our May Rainbow Crate, as we celebrate characters that go through hardships but find comfort in those that stick by their sides, whether that is a found family, a lover, or otherwise.
Our book of the month is Indivisible by Daniel Aleman! We have been waiting SO long to tell you about how much we love this book. Indivisible is incredibly intimate — within a few chapters, we were hanging on every word. We couldn’t put it down. Indivisible sucked us in and didn’t let us go until the final page. So much of it filled us with anger, sadness, wonder, and finally joy, and we’ve been hungry to share it with you! This is the story of Mateo Garcia and his little sister, New York residents and US citizens. Their parents, however, are hard-working, loyal, loving… and illegal immigrants. One day, when Mateo returns home from school, he realizes that his family’s worst fears have come true: his parents were taken away by ICE, and he is now, cruelly, just a teen left alone with his sister in New York City. Suddenly, the best friends that he loves so much become strangers, too – how can they understand what he’s going through? With his parents’ fate and his own future hanging in the balance, Mateo must figure out who he is and what he is capable of, even as he’s forced to question what it means to be an American.
Indivisible is a remarkable story — both powerful in its explorations of immigration in America and deeply intimate in its portrait of a teen boy driven by his fierce, protective love for his parents and his sister.
Our copies are gorgeous new hardcovers and come with signed bookplates and an author letter from Daniel that is going to move you to tears (it did for us).
REP: mlm (gay, unspecified)
Other rep: US immigrants (Mexican, Korean, Italian), first-generation children
CW: very small amount of homophobia, deportation, ICE, underage drinking, mentions of teen sex, pregnancy scare
Our ebook for May is A Meeting of Two Prophets by Judah Tasa. Rep: mlm (gay/bi), Jewish, Muslim. Stay tuned to our social media for more information!
FANDOMS:
– THEY BOTH DIE AT THE END by Adam Silvera (monthly magnet) (rep: mlm)
– ONCE & FUTURE by Amy Rose Capetta & Cory McCarthy (rep: wlw, mlm, queer mlf, pan, gay, genderfluid, enby, ace)
– THE GOOD LUCK GIRLS by Charlotte Nicole Davis (This will be our book club read this month!) (rep: wlw, bipoc)
– QUEER CLASSIC BOOKS by all your favorites (rep: it’s history, so read the subtext as you will!)
– You can expect something related to each of these books as well as our main book, AND we have another great rainbow present for you this month that will help you when you’re anxious. By the way, all of our items now are approved by the various publishers! We have a shiny shiny drinking vessel, something to put your keys in, and a few things to help while you start to venture outside for the summer!
As always, our fandom items are exclusive to our box and will never be restocked or made again.
To join the subscription waitlist, send an email to waitlist@rainbowcratebookbox.com. Waitlist members will be offered subscriptions in order of signup, and if we have any additional openings they will be offered to the public on April 7th.
All of our monthly boxes ship during the third full week of each month. For May, that would be between May 16-22!
how does it work?
curate
We start by requesting upcoming lgbt-related manuscripts from publishers. And then, we hunker down and start reading. A lot. We create lists of our favorites, and then discuss what book we want to feature that month. From there, we start talking to our contact at the publishing house and secure an OK that we will be able to feature that book.
After the book is set, together we choose a theme that fits the book, and fandoms that would fit within that. We chose very popular fandoms for our first box, but from here on out, we plan a range of popular and more obscure fandoms. There are a lot of great stories out there that just aren’t being discovered! Then, we discuss items, and after a loooooooot of work, voila!
subscribe
Choose your plan! We offer 1, 3, and 6 month subscriptions. You don’t have to worry — your box will come until you cancel! We also have limited one-time boxes while supplies are available.
Plans start at $39.99 monthly,
plus shipping. We are a new company, so we have a little higher shipping than some, but we are working to get you the best! If and when we get better discounts, we will pass the savings on to you!
arrive
Your Rainbow Crate is delivered to your address by a charming postal worker.
We ship each monthly crate during the third full week of the month! If you’re unsure of when that is, please don’t hesitate send us an email!
enjoy!
Read your book and enjoy discovering your items! Please let us know what you think! We love to get comments and photos on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and in our email!