After a few weeks hiatus, I’m back with a new vlog about LGBT parenting books and videos of 2010—great for holiday gifts! (Those of you who prefer your gifts guides in text could try my earlier written post.) Mombian: She Got Me Pregnant, 12-16-2010 Uploaded by drudolph. – Watch more LGBT videos. (If the embedded
Remember the news story that broke a couple of months ago about the mom who wrote the book My Princess Boy for her five-year-old son, who loved to dress up in princess clothes? The mom, Cheryl Kilodavis, began selling it locally and directly through Amazon. Her son’s school began using it as an anti-bullying tool. Now, Simon and Schuster–a major mainstream publisher–has picked it up and will begin selling it on December 21. You can pre-order it through Amazon.
2010 brought us a number of excellent films—and a few books—about LGBT families. Here are some you may want to add to your holiday list. Mom’s Apple Pie: The Heart of the Lesbian Mothers’ Custody Movement, a documentary by Jody Laine, Shan Ottey and Shad Reinstein, gives us a look at early custody cases involving
A reader wrote to ask if I knew of any books for young children that discussed getting a new sibling—but which did not feature a mom and a dad for parents. Great question. The answer is that (to the best of my knowledge) there is one, And Baby Makes 4 by Judith Benjamin. (Don’t confuse
Go librarians. The American Library Association (ALA) this week announced it will add an annual award for “English-language works for children and teens of exceptional merit relating to the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered experience.”
Can Harry Potter help our children learn to deal with bullies? That’s a question I tackle over at Our Big Gayborhood, the group blog run by the wonderful Lori Hahn, whom some of you may know from her erstwhile blog Hahn at Home. Thanks to Lori for inviting me to contribute a post!
Via the Advocate comes a wonderful interview with the family of a gender variant child, five-year-old Dyson. (Video below.) Dyson’s mother even wrote a book, My Princess Boy: A mom’s story about a young boy who loves to dress up, for other families like theirs. I have not yet read the book myself, but the
I’m very excited to let you all know that Let’s Get This Straight: The Ultimate Handbook for Youth with LGBTQ Parents is hitting bookstores today. It’s a practical, inspirational, and forthright guide for pre-teens and teens with LGBTQ parents—and we parents could benefit from reading it as well. I had the pleasure of interviewing Tina
It’s Banned Book Week once again—the American Library Association’s annual celebration of the freedom to read. I’ll refer you back to the piece I wrote for Banned Books Week last year, “Penguins, Rabbits, and Guinea Pigs: In Celebration of Banned Books,” noting that LGBT-themed books continue to be banned or challenged, as a July case
Jonathan Kemmerer-Scovner has a spot-on essay at Critical Masses Media about same-sex parents in children’s books. “Children’s literature,” he observes, “acts as a testing ground for the social mores of a society. You may think we’re all progressing along at a fine rate, but if you really want to see where we’re at, stick it in a children’s book and see what that gets you.”
