In Memoriam: Tomie dePaola, Author of “Oliver Button Is a Sissy” and Much More

Prolific and honored children’s book author and illustrator Tomie dePaola died today at age 85 after complications following a fall. Among his many works, DePaola, who was gay, wrote one of the earliest picture books to feature a boy who could be read as queer and “didn’t like to do things that boys are supposed to do.” The book was based on his own childhood experiences.

DePaola wrote and/or illustrated over 270 books, which have sold nearly 25 million copies, according to his website. He received a Caldecott Honor in 1976 for Strega Nona, perhaps his best-known work, about a wise and kind witch. He also won a Newbery Honor for his 1999 26 Fairmount Avenue and was the 2011 Children’s Literature Legacy Award recipient (then called the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award), among many other accolades.

The protagonist of DePaola’s 1979 Oliver Button Is a Sissy prefers to draw, dress up, and dance rather than do sports, even though the other boys tease him. Eventually, though, his courage and tap-dancing performance win over his classmates. Although this is one of the earliest picture books to even hint at having an LGBTQ character (the first one to show same-sex parents, Jane Severance’s When Megan Went Away, was also published that same year), dePaola said in a 2012 interview that it has never been banned from a library. He also noted that the story was “based on something that actually happened to me.”

In a 2009 interview in the New England Journal of Aesthetic Research, he also explained that children’s book illustrating was “probably one of the best fields to be gay in frankly. I found out right from the get-go it made absolutely no difference amongst the editors and the professionals…. And, of course, there’s so many gay and lesbian people in the field that it’s sort of a moot point. I think it allowed me the opportunity when I was a child not to waste my time batting my head against other people on the football team but to sit and draw. And to take tap dancing lessons and find out about the great world of the stage.”

DePaola, although gay, did not write books with more overt LGBTQ content. In fact, many (but far from all) of his books have religious themes, including Patrick: Patron Saint of Ireland and Let The Whole Earth Sing Praise. DePaola left the Catholic Church in the 1960s, concerned that the Church was becoming more conservative—but he had almost become a monk earlier in his life. Personally, I love that a gay author produced children’s books with religious content. It puts lie to the claim that there is a battle between the LGBTQ community and religion, or that one can’t identify with both.

His books found fans worldwide, of all identities and beliefs. One of my favorites, which I remember reading with my son when he was younger, was The Knight and the Dragon, whose dual protagonists start by trying to do what their roles traditionally require. They prepare (half-heartedly) to fight each other, but end up finding their own paths and working together.

The Associated Press (via ABC News) has a longer obituary about dePaola’s life and work, and notes that he died from complications during surgery after a fall last week. He will be deeply missed.

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