The American Library Association’s 2009 Rainbow List of children’s and young adult books with “significant” LGBT content is now out! I interviewed the chair of the Rainbow List Committee, Nel Ward, and the article has just appeared at 365gay.com. I can’t crosspost it yet but I hope some of you will go have a read
Helen and I congratulate the world’s first lesbian mom to become a head of state. We then turn to a viewer’s more personal question: How to deal with a pregnant partner’s hormonal mood swings. (“Run!” is a tempting but unacceptable answer.) Although there were no parenting angles this week on The L Word, we use
One added benefit of my trip to New York has been that I had the pleasure of dining last night at Café Forant, the restaurant owned by Lea Forant and Carolyn Montgomery, the lesbian moms of Campbell Soup ad fame. Julien Sharp, whose writing some of you may know from Pam’s House Blend, was kind
Our kindergartener is starting to read more and more, and can make his way through “easy reader” books like The Cat in the Hat. We’re also trying to read to him from books that are a little beyond his own ability, but have the more complex plotlines and characters that capture his imagination now. Among
(Originally published in Bay Windows, December 11, 2008.) LGBT parents or our kids on your holiday list? For the most part, mainstream gift guides will work just fine. Not everything we own has to be rainbow colored, and our kids already have three “I love my mommies” t-shirts each. If you do want something with
J. K. Rowling is no fool. She’s releasing the latest book in the Harry Potter universe, The Tales of Beedle the Bard, today, just in time for the holidays. Yeah, I’m a sucker and I’m going to buy it. The book purports to be the collection of five tales mentioned in Harry Potter and the
The guinea pigs have had the spotlight this year, as picture book Uncle Bobby’s Wedding has faced several attempted challenges from library patrons who wanted to remove or reshelve it. The penguins of And Tango Makes Three are not out of danger yet, however, as a school board meeting in Ankeny, Iowa made clear. Cindy
There’s more going on right now than just the presidential election and Halloween. Here are a few stories: First, score one for the penguins: Library trustees in Calvert County, Maryland, voted unanimously to keep And Tango Makes Three in the children’s section of county libraries, along with other picture books, despite an official complaint that
Sometimes the headlines write themselves. Conservative writer and DC resident Margaret Hemenway is appalled that her child’s female first-grade teacher read Uncle Bobby’s Wedding to the class as a way to help the class understand that she (the teacher) was marrying another woman. Not only that, but Hemenway then goes on to tie 60’s radical
The 2008 Cybil nominees are here! Never heard of them? They bill themselves as “the premier Web awards for children’s literature,” and since they’ve been around for three years now, they have some claim to the title. The books are nominated by the public, and a panel of literary bloggers chooses the finalists. Several LGBT-themed
