New Christmas Book Features Child with Two Dads

Many of us are starting our holiday shopping this week, so it’s great to be able to share a fun new Christmas picture book starring a child with two dads!

The Christmas Truck, written by J. B. Blankenship and illustrated by Cassandre Bolan, is one of the growing number of books in which the fact of same-sex parents is irrelevant to the plot. In it, a child (whose gender is never specified and whose wavy hair could be seen as any gender), prepares for Christmas with his/her Papa and Dad. After trimming their own tree, they go to visit the tree in their town, which is hung with notes (“wishes”) from children who “don’t have many toys.” The child selects one, and works with the dads to buy and wrap presents for the less affluent family, including a toy fire truck.

On Christmas Eve, the child’s grandparents, aunt, and uncle come to visit. During their meal, however, disaster strikes, and their Christmas tree falls over, breaking the fire truck. Grandma, who used to be the town fire chief, comes to the rescue, borrowing a real fire truck so they can deliver their presents to the other family. That feels a little deus ex machina, but the cheery tone and good intentions of the tale make it work.

There’s much to like about the book: the bouncy rhymes, the bright illustrations, the showing of extended family, the message about the meaning of the holiday. As I’ve said before, too (in a post about a book for the Jewish holiday of Purim, as happens), LGBTQ-inclusive picture books have largely shown culturally and religiously neutral families. Diversity of color has started to appear, but even those books don’t explore the families’ various cultural and/or religious traditions. Kids may therefore see some important aspects of their families in these books, but others are left out — and we are left with the ongoing impression that religion and LGBTQ people are mutually exclusive. The Christmas Truck is a step forward to correct that.

Alas, I know of no books specific to Hanukkah or Kwanzaa that feature LGBTQ parents, although the coloring book My Family! A Multi-Cultural Holiday Coloring Book for Children of Gay and Lesbian Parents includes those holidays (and Christmas) in the mix. Lesléa Newman, author of the classic Heather Has Two Mommies, also includes Hanukkah in her recent Here Is the World: A Year of Jewish Holidays, but the family in it appears to have different-sex parents (although the dad could be seen as a butch lesbian or either parent could be transgender). Clearly there’s a gap here that needs to be filled!

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