#ReadYourWorld: LGBTQ-Inclusive Kids’ Books for Multicultural Children’s Book Day

It’s the 5th Annual Multicultural Children’s Book Day! Here are a few of my picks that emphasize the “multi” in “multicultural”—books that are both LGBTQ inclusive and diverse in other ways.

Multicultural Children’s Book Day (MCBD) was founded in 2014 by children’s reading and play advocates Valarie Budayr from Jump Into a Book and Mia Wenjen from PragmaticMom with the mission “to not only raise awareness for the kid’s books that celebrate diversity, but to get more of these of books into classrooms and libraries.” They define multicultural children’s books as encompassing:

• Books that contain characters of color as well as main characters that represent a minority point of view.

• Books written by an author of diversity or color from their perspective. Search #ownvoices to discover diverse books written by diverse authors.
• Books that share ideas, stories, and information about cultures, race, religion, language, and traditions. These books can be non-fiction, but still written in a way that kids will find entertaining and informative.

• Books that embrace special needs or even “hidden disabilities” like ADHD, ADD, and anxiety.

While there are a growing number of LGBTQ-inclusive children’s books with characters who reflect non-majority (in the U.S.) cultures, races, religions, languages, and traditions (though far from what we need), I’d like to highlight a few #ownvoices ones here:

When We Love Someone We Sing to Them: Cuando Amamos Cantamos, by Ernesto Javier Martínez. A lyrical bilingual book celebrating both the love between two boys and the supportive relationship between the boy and his father. Pura Belpré Honor Award winner Maya Christina Gonzalez deserves equal credit for her vibrant illustrations. (Full review.)

Call Me Tree/Llamame arbol, both written and illustrated by Maya Christina Gonzalez, shows a child whose gender is never specified moving through this lovely bilingual story that parallels personal growth and growth in the natural world.

Keesha’s South African Adventure, by Cheril N. Clarke and Monica Bey-Clarke, illustrated by Julia Selyutina. After a young girl learns about South Africa in school, she begs her two moms to take her there. They surprise her with a trip, where she learns about South African animals, food, and landmarks, then returns to tell her classmates about it. This is the second book about Keesha, after Keesha and Her Two Moms Go Swimming. (Full review.)

Families, by Jesse Unaapik Mike and Kerry McCluskey, illustrated by Lenny Lishchenko. Second-grader Talittuq, whose family is Inuit and lives in Nunavut, is wondering why his father doesn’t live with him and his mother and why his family is different. Over the course of a day, though, he observes many different families, including one with two moms and an involved birth mom, and a male teacher with a husband. (Full review.)

The Purim Superhero, by Elizabeth Kushner, illustrated by Mike Byrne. A boy (who happens to have two dads) tries to find the perfect costume for the Jewish holiday of Purim. (Full review.)

The Boy and the Bindi, by Vivek Shraya, illustrated by Rajni Perera. A Hindu boy asks his mother about her bindi. She gives him one of his own, which helps him expand his conception of gender.

Harini and Padmini Say Namaste, by Amy Maranville, illustrated by Tim Palin. Padmini and her friend Harini take their first yoga class and learn some of the basics—as well as some of the spiritual history of yoga—in this adorable book. Padmini happens to have two moms. Note: This is not technically an #ownvoices book, since Maranville is not of Southeast Asian heritage—but it is published by Bharat Babies, founded by Sailaja Joshi, who is. Joshi reached out to Maranville as she was founding the company and in need of an experienced children’s writer. The two (and the rest of the Bharat Babies team) clearly work closely together on this and other Harini books, as is evident from this interview with Joshi and this one with Maranville. This tight collaboration with Joshi’s #ownvoices perspective swayed me to include the book here.

Finally, a special shout-out to the two sets of books from Flamingo Rampant micropress. All of their books have been written “by people who are representing their own cultural/religious holidays and festivals,” they tell us, and at least half center people of color or multi-racial people and include characters across the spectrum of sexual orientations, gender identities, gender expressions, and family structures. They’re only available as sets, directly from the publisher—and they’ve just successfully raised funds through Kickstarter for a third set.

One observation: All of these books are from small presses—some founded by the authors themselves—and not major publishers. I’m always impressed that so many people who don’t see themselves or their families in books have responded by writing and/or publishing their own stories. Here’s hoping that events such as MCBD will compel the big publishing houses to step up and increase their LGBTQ-inclusive, intersectional, and #ownvoices offerings as well (even as small presses continue to thrive).

Have a look, too, at my post focusing on LGBTQ-inclusive picture books with characters of different faiths, as well as my larger list of LGBTQ-inclusive kids’ books, for additional titles with diverse characters. Kudos to the MCBD team for continuing to turn people’s attention to the need for multicultural books across various aspects of identity and for working to get these books into classrooms.

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