A Dog with Two Dads Gets a New Sibling in Charming Picture Book

An adorable French bulldog named Pickles lives contentedly with his human papas—until one day, when they bring home another puppy to be his sibling. Can Pickles adapt to sharing his papas and his home?

Pickles + Ocho, by Dan Wellik (Beaver’s Pond Press) is a tale for animal lovers and for children who are themselves learning to accept new siblings. Told from Pickles’ first-person perspective, the book begins before the new pup’s arrival, when Pickles has the run of the house, lots of toys, and three beds. One day, however, he and his dads travel back to the farm where he was born, where they get a new puppy. “They say he’s my new bother. Brother?” Pickles ponders.

The dads name their new pup Ocho, a Spanish word, because one of them is from Mexico. “Do I have to share my papas with Ocho?” Pickles complains. he remains unsure as Ocho joins him in the papas’ bedroom at night and at breakfast in the morning. Pickles discovers that Ocho likes to play, though, and that’s fun for them both—but when Ocho later wants to snuggle, Pickles says, “I’m not ready. Still gotta have my space. For now.” Eventually, however, all of them settle into a new routine as a family of four. “My family has changed but it feels all right,” reflects Pickles. Ocho still bugs him occasionally, but Pickles says he’s “learning a lot about how families share with one another.” Nevertheless, “I have a great life!” he concludes.

Children who are themselves learning to accept new siblings will likely empathize with Pickles’ experience. Pickles is an engaging protagonist happy to share his world, and illustrator Tou Yia Xiong’s bright, distinctive images help bring the pups’ antics to life. The book has won the National Indie Excellence Award for Children’s Fiction, among other awards, and it’s easy to see why.

Some Larger Trends

Pickles + Ocho also helps fill a need for stories about children of LGBTQ parents getting new siblings. The only other book I know of with this theme is the 2009 self-published And Baby Makes 4, by Judith Benjamin. (The more recent, and excellent, When Aidan Became a Brother, by Kyle Lukoff, involves a transgender boy with different-sex parents becoming a sibling—also an important theme, but a different one.) Much as I have argued for more LGBTQ-inclusive children’s books that aren’t “about” the characters being LGBTQ, I think sibling arrival is one area where children of LGBTQ parents can benefit from having books that speak to their specific experiences of family formation.

This isn’t the first LGBTQ-inclusive children’s book to depict same-sex parents of animal children: In The Adventures of Honey and Leon, by actor Alan Cumming, two dogs who are tired of being left at home follow their two (human) dads on an overseas trip. Rumplepimple and Rumplepimple Goes to Jail, by Suzanne DeWitt Hall, give us the adventures of a terrier who lives with his two (human) moms and a cat sibling. And The True Adventures of Esther the Wonder Pig, by Steve Jenkins, Derek Walter, and Caprice Crane, is based on the true story of Jenkins and Walters’ adoption of what they think is a mini-pig—but who eventually grows to 600 pounds. (There are also many other LGBTQ-inclusive books with animal characters, realistic or anthropomorphic, that do not involve human “parents.”)

While these are all fun stories, I do wonder if stories about human same-sex parents and their animal children aren’t somehow missing opportunities to remind people that same-sex parents are capable of raising human children. Are same-sex parents raising pets more palatable to a wide audience? As Lindsay Toman observed in a 2014 master’s thesis, “Queering the ABCs: LGBTQ Characters in Children’s Books,” which analyzed the far fewer number of LGBTQ-inclusive picture books at the time:

The children’s books that openly scripted gay [male] characters used animals rather than humans to represent these characters. For example, one storyline featured two male hamsters getting married [actually, these are guinea pigs; see below — Mombian], while in another, two male penguins fall in love. By telling stories about male same-sex relationships with animal rather than human characters, the authors seemed to deliberately sidestep any controversy about human sexuality. It may be easier for an adult to read a story to a child about animals having a homosexual relationship and avoid questions about gay human relationships. The animal characters may be more compelling to the children than stories about their relationships. Other than celebrating gay animals falling in love, most other storylines that included gay characters kept their sexuality implicit or ambiguous.

Yet the 2008 picture book that Toman references, Uncle Bobby’s Wedding, by Sarah Brannen, about a girl guinea pig (not a hamster) whose uncle is marrying his boyfriend (also guinea pigs), is getting an updated edition next year, with new illustrations showing all the characters as humans. Perhaps this signals we are now at a point where we no longer have to “sidestep” questions about real, human families with same-sex parents.

I don’t think it was Wellik’s intention at all to “sidestep” these questions—he simply based the characters of Pickles and Ocho on his and his partner’s real-life French bulldogs (and Cumming and Hall likewise took inspiration from their own pets). Regardless of authorial intentions, though, it may nevertheless be true that books with human LGBTQ parents and animal “children” might make some non-LGBTQ parents or teachers more willing to read the book with their children, since they won’t feel like they might have to explain queer family formation. To the extent that that at least gets some positive images of LGBTQ-headed families in front of children who might not otherwise see them, that’s not an entirely bad thing. Children may even relate deeply to the animal children. At the same time, I think we still need more books showing fully human LGBTQ families, reflecting our real world—and parents and teachers need to be better equipped to explain LGBTQ families in age appropriate ways, so they need not shy away from stories about them. (And none of this is to deny there have been many classic stories with anthropomorphic characters that are both engaging and socially meaningful, like Charlotte’s Web, Watership Down, and (for adults) Animal Farm and Maus, among others.)

A Dog’s Life

Regardless of the larger trends, though, Pickles + Ocho is in itself a delightful read and a beautifully designed book. If you or your children are animal lovers, with or without siblings, give it a try. The book is also available in a Spanish edition. (Wellik and his partner Gabino have a bi-lingual, English/Spanish household, so this was important to them, they said in a press statement.) If you’re really a fan of the tale, too, you can buy cute Pickles + Ocho plushies from Wellik’s website. And don’t forget to recommend the book to your local library!

(I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program that provides a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.)