Tango and Heather Authors Bring Us Two New Books

(Originally published as my Mombian newspaper column. Stay tuned for tomorrow when I’ll share Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell’s answers to a few questions about their new book.

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The authors of two of the most famous LGBT children’s books have two new books out this month. Neither work has an overt LGBT theme this time, but both center on issues of love and family that should give them wide appeal both within and outside the LGBT community.

Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, authors of And Tango Makes Three, about two male penguins who raise a chick, now bring us Christian, the Hugging Lion. The tale, like Tango, is based on a true story. In 1969, John Rendall and Ace Bourke bought Christian as a cub from the exotic pets department of Harrod’s department store in London, wishing to rescue him from his cramped cage. He lived with them, played in a local churchyard, and became known for his hugs until he got too big and Ace and John decided he belonged in the wild.

They hired wildlife conservationist George Adamson (of Born Free fame) to repatriate Christian back to Kenya. A year later, they went to visit. Although they had been told the lion, now wild, would not remember them, he did. A video of their reunion became a minor YouTube sensation in 2008, and the men have appeared on Oprah and The Today Show, among other places.

Richardson and Parnell are not the first to put pen to paper about Christian and his caretakers. Rendall and Bourke themselves wrote A Lion Called Christian in 1971, and an updated version came out this past March. A version for older elementary school and middle school children, Christian the Lion, came out a year ago. Christian has also been the subject of two documentary films.

Christian the Hugging Lion brings the tale to younger children. Parnell and Richardson show the same flair for simple yet winsome dialog that delighted readers of Tango. They find just the right lighter moments to highlight, such as John and Ace sitting in Christian’s shipping crate, trying to prepare him for his flight to Africa. Amy June Bates’ illustrations make the book as charming as Henry Cole’s illustrations made Tango.

There is no overt LGBT theme as there was in Tango. LGBT families will immediately realize, however, that the authors left the relationship between the two men rather vague. They are not a couple in real life, and Parnell and Richardson do not imply that they are—but neither do they find it necessary to point out that they are not by labeling them “friends.” They share an apartment, and the rest is for readers to fill in as they wish. The book does tell us, however, that after Christian came into their lives, “The three of them had become the most unusual family in all of London.”

By taking this approach, Parnell and Richardson are allowing children of same-sex parents to see a little of their own reality in the story—two men caring for a cub/child, and comfortable with being “unusual.” If that child imagines them a couple, so be it. Others may imagine them as friends, and that is fine, too. That openness and inclusion are not surprising coming from Parnell and Richardson, who are themselves a couple and the parents of a one-year-old.

We need more stories with obvious LGBT families in them, no doubt. I would argue, however, that we also need more stories like Christian: ones that reflect many types of families and defy categorization. Tango is a fantastic book, but has also for several years been at or near the top of the American Library Association’s list of books patrons are most likely to challenge, asking for their removal or reshelving. Christian may more easily stay on shelves in libraries, schools, and homes, getting the message of acceptance across to an audience that might not condone the overt same-sex family portrayed in Tango.

Aside from the deeper message, however, Christian should gain many fans purely because it is a wonderful story, well told. Animal-loving children and parents with a conservationist bent will find it enchanting.

Just Like Mama, the latest work from Lesléa Newman, author of Heather Has Two Mommies, also falls into the “unspecified” family category. The book is an ode from a little girl to her Mama. Whether Mama is a single mom, or one half of a couple that includes another mom or a dad remains unclear. As with Christian, that vagueness makes it work for a variety of families (though families with no moms or with only male children may find it doesn’t resonate).

“Nobody wakes me up just like Mama,” it begins, and then conveys all of the many things Mama does like no one else. Tea parties and hair braiding are among them, but so too are playing ball, burping, and hunting for frogs.

It is not a narrative tale, but its bouncy rhymes and Julia Gorton’s dynamic illustrations should keep readers engaged to the end. And because it finishes with the girl bringing her mother breakfast in bed—“Nobody loves Mama just like me”—it would also make a wonderful present for Mother’s Day or Mothers’ Day, however one celebrates it.

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