For Mother’s Day or all year ’round, here are some great picture books about the relationships between queer moms and our children—with married/coupled moms, single moms, divorced moms, cis and trans moms, and even more variety!
These are hardly all of the picture books that have families with queer moms in them—I wanted this list to be massive but not unmanageable. I’m highlighting three recent titles and then rounding up some older ones I particularly like that emphasize the relationship between mom(s) and kid(s). Find something new or be inspired by an old favorite!
I’m leaving aside books specific to family creation, since that’s a whole separate (though obviously related) topic, and can easily be pulled up in my database. I’m also saving Pride-themed books (with queer moms and/or other parents) for a Pride-themed roundup in a few weeks—stay tuned!
You can always filter my database for even more books (including middle-grade titles and books for grown-ups) that have queer moms (and other types of queer parents) in them.
Regardless of whether your family is celebrating moms or other important people in your family this coming weekend, I hope you’ll join in the fun on June 1 for LGBTQ Families Day, a time to celebrate all families with LGBTQ people in them.
Recent Books
Click titles or images for full reviews!
In My Mommies Built a Treehouse, by Gareth Peter, illustrated by Izzy Evans (Lantana), a boy has only one wish—to build a treehouse! His moms agree to help, but there’s lots to do! Building the treehouse requires work—and the ability to overcome setbacks and obstacles. The family pulls together to tackle the project, though, and soon there’s a place for the boy and his friends to play and pretend. After the friends leave, it becomes a cozy shelter for just him and his moms. A sweet rhyming story in which the fact of two moms is happily incidental.
My Friend, Loonie, by Nina LaCour, illustrated by Ashling Lindsay (Candlewick), tells of a girl who loves to do things with her balloon companion, Loonie. When Loonie floats away, she is bereft. Her two moms—and time—help her engage positively with her memories until she is again able to do the things she and Loonie used to do together. In fact, she is even discovering new things in a newly bright world. A charming book with a gentle message about friendship, grief, and finding comfort in memories while also moving forward.
I’m slipping in this one even though it’s technically a middle-grade graphic novel, since it skews towards the young end of that range and has big visual impact. Grace Needs Space, by Benjamin A. Wilgus and illustrated by Rii Abrego (Random House), tells of a girl who lives on a space station with one mom, but is excited about going on vacation with her other (divorced/separated) mom, captain of a freighter ship. Despite the vividly portrayed futuristic setting, this is a book about a family, not about space per se, offering a model for both kids and their parents of how to remain a family even in a new orbital configuration.
I’m going to give a quick mention, too, to the brand-new early middle-grade series The House on Sunrise Lagoon, which I featured yesterday. The first two books are out now in this fun series about a blended two-mom family. For other middle-grade and chapter books featuring queer moms, see the database.
A Roundup of Favorites
Click images for reviews! (And no, Jeanne Manford of PFLAG wasn’t queer herself, but I couldn’t leave out the biography of her, which begins, “What does a mom do?” before showing how she co-founded PFLAG to support her gay son, a prominent act of maternal allyship.)
