Children’s Books with LGBT Parents of Color

I wrote recently about a new Kickstarter campaign by Flamingo Rampant, which will launch a book club for new LGBTQ and two-spirit picture books, committed to making half of them by and about people of color. I was happy to see the project mentioned so favorably at Slate — but the article incorrectly says that the last children’s book featuring same-sex parents who are not White was Asha’s Mums, published in 1990. That’s not true. Although the number is small, and we desperately need more, there have been a few.

• Most prominently, My Family, a publishing company founded by Cheril N. Clarke and Monica Bey-Clarke, offers a number of books featuring same-sex parents of color, including Keesha & Her Two Moms Go Swimming (2010), with two Black moms and their daughter, and My Family! A Multi-Cultural Holiday Coloring Book for Children of LGBT Parents.
• The Hugs of Three: My Mommies and Me and the similar Hugs of Three: My Daddies and Me board books (2012) feature one Black parent and one White parent in each book, along with a White child. See my review here, and purchase them via the publisher’s website.
• Best Best Colors: Los mejores colores (2002) also has one Black and one White parent, and a Black child.
• Parents of color are included in the mix (but not in the majority) in ABC: A Family Alphabet Book (2000).
• Antonio’s Card / La Tarjeta de Antonio (2005) includes one Latina mom (and while Latina/o identity is not the same as race, I include the book here in the spirit of ethnic diversity).

There have also been a few books showing children of color with White parents, including Vanita Oelschlager’s A Tale of Two Mommies (2011), which includes a Black boy (my review here); In Our Mothers’ House (2009), which includes Black, Asian, and White siblings (my review here); How My Family Came to Be: Daddy, Papa and Me, with a Black boy; and Felicia’s Favorite Story (2002), about a girl adopted from Guatemala (see note above re: Latina identity). This isn’t the same as showing parents of color, but I include them here in the general spirit of celebrating diverse families.

That’s not a lot, given the wonderful variety of LGBT families. It’s especially not a lot when same-sex couples of color are about twice as likely as White same-sex couples to be raising children. We need much more. Just as we want our children to see themselves reflected in stories about LGBT families, we want them to see themselves in stories that reflect their racial, ethnic, and cultural identities as well — and we want to give children the opportunity to learn about families not like their own, too. The Flamingo Rampant Book Club promises to lead the way into the future; I hope many others will follow.

(Thanks to Susan Ryan-Vollmar for the tip about the Slate article.)

I am a member of the Amazon Associates program, and get a small referral fee from all purchases made at Amazon.com via links on this site. You are under no obligation to purchase through them.