A Seaside Storybook with Two Moms

I’m just going to lean in to the fact that there were so many LGBTQ-inclusive kids’ books this year that I’m still working on full reviews for some of them. We’ll be a little book-heavy this week. Here’s a delightful tale about a family’s adventures by the seaside—a family that just happens to have two moms.

My Mommy, My Mama, My Brother, and Me: These Are the Things We Found By the Sea, by Natalie Meisner (Nimbus), reflects the author’s own life as part of a biracial two-mom family raising two sons in Nova Scotia. The narrator, however, is a young child who invites readers to visit his home “in a town surrounded by sea.” Meisner captures the setting with verses like “We’re used to the fog/Here, it’s thick like pea soup/If you like, you can taste it/Come have a scoop.” Sometimes the sun appears, though, offering an opportunity for the family—two brothers and two moms (one Black and one White each)—to go exploring on the beach. It’s unclear which brother is narrating, but that’s fine; readers can see themselves in either one.

Any parent or child who has also spent time at the seaside will delight in the close-ups of the objects they find, beautifully rendered by illustrator Mathilde Cinq-Mars. We see a lobster claw, a plover nest, a moon snail, a fishing float, a starfish, and more. The best finds, however, are their neighbors—a sea captain who explains what a mermaid’s purse is (an egg sack for a shark or sting ray); a painter who gives the brothers a piece of sea glass; a biologist who tells them about sea urchins. In a final scene, they are all celebrating together at the family’s home.

A few of the rhythms and rhymes jolt awkwardly, but overall, Meisner captures the spirit of a joyous family outing and gives us a book any family that loves the sea should cherish. Cinq-Mars’ illustrations of the family and friends, as well as the objects they find, are gorgeous and evocative. I can almost feel the sea breeze as I read.

I love, too, that this family just happens to have two moms, without that being central to the tale. It should appeal to nature lovers and beach goers in all types of families.

This is Meisner’s first picture book, but in 2014 she authored the memoir Double Pregnant: Two Lesbians Make a Family, about starting her family and being pregnant at the same time as her spouse. (Bonus fun fact: It’s not the only simultaneous-pregnancy memoir; see also Kristen Henderson and Sarah Kate Ellis’ 2011 Times Two: Two Women in Love and the Happy Family They Made.) Thanks to Meisner for now sharing an additional piece of her family experience with us all, in a format for younger readers.