Here’s to the dads, to all who fill that role, and to all who claim today as their own. Let’s celebrate with a roundup of recent picture, middle-grade, and grown-up books featuring queer dads!
A hysterically funny tale of a child and one dad trying to lure the child’s other dad out of bed in the morning.“It’s Pride, baby,” and the message from these two dads to their child is one of affirmation and support, no matter who the child grows to be or love.Life was “just right” for Sofia and her two dads—but now, a new brother will soon arrive, and Sofia has lots of questions. Will her dads like the new child better? Does the new child even want a sister?A story about open adoption that spends time not only on the child’s adoption by two dads, but also on the birth mother and her journey.This joyful book adds to the small number of books featuring trans parents, and the even smaller number featuring pregnant transgender men.Dads do all kinds of things, look different, and have different family structures, but all love and adore their children, asserts this joyful, rhyming ode to fatherhood, which includes two two-dad families in it.YouTube creators, musicians, and husbands Sam Tsui and Casey Breves take readers on a joyful, rhyming exploration of the titular question, following a protagonist family of a young, overall-clad girl and her two dads.A boy deals with the changes in his life after his dads’ divorce, in the only picture book entirely about a child of two divorced dads.
Middle Grade
A sweet and satisfying modern fantasy novel about two very different girls who each feel like outsiders, but who must unite to try and save their magical town from a spell gone awry—and maybe get their dads to date in the process.A girl must journey to a botanical boarding school to try and find the plant that will save the life of one of her two dads.Vivian wants eighth grade to be her best year yet—except her first day is the worst. She’s ready to move on—but wakes up the next day on the first day of school again, stuck in a Groundhog Day-like time loop.The sequel to the sword-swinging fantasy Sir Callie and the Champions of Helston, with a nonbinary protagonist who has two dads.In this early middle grade graphic novel, monster Pebble needs to spend time in the human world to unlock their monster skills. Human child Wren and her two dads take Pebble in, in a sweet, lighthearted tale of friendship across difference.A hilarious graphic novel/diary hybrid told from the perspective of a girl living a very average life with her two dads in the land of Gumbling, a magical enclave of the modern world.Mix a magical boarding school with a cooking competition, season with queerness, braise in the warmth of friendship, add a dash of romance and a protagonist with two dads, and you’ll serve up Basil and Oregano.
Grown-Up
Author Mark Daley and his husband thought they knew what to expect when they decided to start a family via foster care in Los Angeles. The journey that they found themselves on was far from what they imagined, however, as Daley details in this memoir that is both a personal story and a critical look at the foster care system.Lane Igoudin chronicles his and his husband’s three-year journey to adopt two girls from the Los Angeles County child welfare system, as they are all caught up in a convoluted and at times seemingly arbitrary legal process.Fathers, influencers, and advocates Terrell and Jarius Joseph have written a book that is partly a memoir and partly a guide to relationships, parenting, and how to build a life you love.The true story of U.S. citizen Andrew Dvash-Banks and his husband, Israeli citizen Elad Dvash-Banks, their twin sons, and the years-long fight to gain equal U.S. citizenship for both boys. A hysterically funny, touching, and perceptive novel about two men about to embark on parenthood.
