“Writing has always been my political activism,” said Lesléa Newman, author of Heather Has Two Mommies, the classic 1989 children’s book that was one of the first to feature a child with two moms. Her two new books, however, are sweet, simple tales of family life, without any overt politics or agenda. Mommy, Mama, and
Helen and I discuss two new children’s books (one about moms and one about dads) by Lesléa Newman, author of Heather Has Two Mommies. We then reveal yet another hidden lesbian on children’s television, Lily Tomlin (bonus points if you can guess which show without looking it up), and ask whether we’ll see any actual
My son is starting to read more on his own now, so I was delighted to find the lighthearted early reader There Is a Bird On Your Head! by Mo Willems, of Knuffle Bunny and Pigeon fame. The simple plot is that elephant Gerald has a bird on his head, and must rely on his
“Guess what?” “Chicken Butt!” The classic schoolyard gag has found new life in Chicken Butt!, a picture book by critically acclaimed children’s author Erica Perl. There is nothing LGBT-specific about the story, but Perl’s illustrator is Henry Cole, the prolific artist who also did the drawings for Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson’s And Tango Makes
For the third year in a row, Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell’s And Tango Makes Three, about two male penguins who care for an orphaned egg and raise a chick, tops the American Library Association’s (ALA) Top Ten list of the Most Frequently Challenged Books. This despite the fact that the book is based on
This week, Helen and I are celebrating 16 years together! We also discuss the joys of classic Disney films (with or without a young Angela Lansbury), and how children’s movies have changed over the years, not necessarily for the better. For bonus points, we demonstrate the fun fold-out action of the Panorama book I blogged
It’s National Poetry Month, and while I dislike the idea of constraining poetry to one month (same for women’s history, black history, etc.), I see no reason not to use it as an occasion to celebrate. I’ll be doing a variety of poetry-related pieces throughout the month. Stay tuned. I’ll start with a book recommendation:
The 21st Lambda Literary Award finalists were announced this week. The six finalists for the LGBT Children’s/Young Adult category are fine books all, although I’m a little disappointed none of them show LGBT parents—as important as it also is to show LGBT kids. Actually, Hit the Road, Manny, is about a gay male nanny, so
Here’s my third book-recommendation post in honor of the Share a Story – Shape a Future Blog Tour for Literacy. (Here are the first and second.) Today’s books take an artistic turn. Both are from Abrams Books for Young Readers, and published in conjunction with Britain’s Tate Museum. David Goodman and Zoe Miller’s Shape has
Here’s my second book-recommendation post in honor of the Share a Story – Shape a Future Blog Tour for Literacy. (The first is here; if you count my mention of the Harvey Milk book yesterday, then this is really the third book post this week.) I’m going to highlight two new picture books today, both
