New Picture Book Is a Perfect Bedtime Tale for Queer Families

A sweet new picture book is a conversation between a parent and child about how different types of families form—not by going into technical details, but by focusing on the parental promise that underlies them.

I Promise, by Catherine Hernandez (Arsenal Pulp), begins at bedtime, when a child asks their single mama, “You know Miracle from swim class? If she has two dads, where did she come from?” It comes across as a question of genuine curiosity, not hostility. The mother responds, “Well, Miracle came from a promise that every child deserves a safe home, a super comfy bed to sleep on, and one more story before nighty-night.”

The child (who appears traditionally female but whose gender is never stated) asks about other friends as well. The mother answers each time in similarly evocative ways, drawing on the everyday moments of love that fill our family lives. When the child asks about themselves, the mother responds, “You came from a promise that pretend tea tastes better than real tea and cardboard boxes are better than real cars. You came from a promise to clap for you when you learn something new and to tuck you in really tight at night.” Images of the child and mother engaging in their bedtime routine are interspersed with images of the other families. Child and mother both appear to be Black; the other children and parents seem to be of varied racial and ethnic identities.

Hernandez is an award-winning Canadian author, playwright, and performer whose publisher biography describes her as “a queer Filipina femme, Navajo wife, radical mother, award-winning author, and the artistic director of b current performing arts.” Readers here may know her as the author of M is for Mustache: A Pride ABC Book, published by LGBTQ micro-press Flamingo Rampant. Illustrator Syrus Marcus Ware also has a history with Flamingo Rampant, as both author and illustrator of Love is in the Hair. He is also a visual artist, activist, curator, and educator, a core-team member of both Black Lives Matter Toronto and Blackness Yes!/Blockorama, and a Ph.D candidate and Vanier scholar at York University in the Faculty of Environmental Studies.

I Promise isn’t a book to teach children the mechanics of assisted reproduction, adoption, or any other form of family making. (If you’re looking for that, try these.) It’s about conveying to children, through poetic prose, that no matter how a family is created, it is built on a promise of love from parent to child. This is a perfect bedtime story for children of queer families (and even not-so-queer ones).