I wrote the other day about The Purim Superhero, the first LGBT-inclusive Jewish children’s book in English—but two lesbian moms might be lurking in a children’s book about Judaism that was published 28 years ago.
It is a truism in the LGBT community to say that we need LGBT-inclusive children’s books so our kids see images of families like theirs. Yet with few exceptions, LGBT-inclusive picture books have largely shown culturally and religiously neutral families. Diversity of color has started to appear, but even those books don’t explore the families’ various cultural and religious traditions. Kids may therefore see some important aspects of their families in these books, but others are left out. Elisabeth Kushner’s The Purim Superhero, the first clearly LGBT-inclusive Jewish children’s book in English, takes a different approach.
This charming new book, The Very Beary Tooth Fairy, is not obviously gay-inclusive upon first read. But it does contain a hidden gay surprise—and both the author, Arthur Levine, and the illustrator, Sarah Brannen, are known in the LGBT community for their gay-inclusive works. This, their first collaboration, is a sweet tale that any family will likely enjoy.
Jennifer Gennari is the author of the new middle-grade book, My Mixed-Up Berry Blue Summer, about a girl living in Vermont with her mother and her mother’s soon-to-be fiancée, just after Vermont approved civil unions for same-sex couples. I reviewed it a few weeks back, and reached out to her to write a guest post for Mombian, which she kindly agreed to do. Below, she discusses the moment of homophobia against a teen in her community that led her to pen the book, and the personal experiences she wove into it. Thanks to her for sharing this with us.
I was thrilled to see that the same book won the American Library Association’s top honors Monday for both the LGBT- and Latino-related children’s book awards, proving that one book can address multiple aspects of identity (and countering the prevalent media impression that the LGBT community is predominantly White). It just so happens, too, that the intersecting of identities is a major theme in LGBT politics this week.
LGBT-inclusive children’s and young adult books are hard to find. Good ones are even harder. I’m delighted, therefore, that the American Library Association has just honored a number of new ones in two ways, through their Stonewall Book Awards and their Rainbow List.
The year 2012 saw several notable books about LGBT parents and our children, including one for the often-ignored middle-grade readers, a young adult novel about two African American teens with a transgender dad, two memoirs (one by a gay dad, and another by the son of lesbian moms), and a fascinating history of LGBT family rights. They make better gifts than yet another “I Love My Mommies” t-shirt.
Congratulations to Roe, who won last week’s giveaway of Jennifer Gennari’s LGBT-inclusive middle-grade book My Mixed-Up Berry Blue Summer. (For details about the book, see my earlier post.) Even if you didn’t win, though, here’s one thing you can do to help authors of LGBT-inclusive kids’ books (and thus, indirectly, our kids).
Congratulations to Lydia, who won Tuesday’s giveaway of Jennifer Gennari’s LGBT-inclusive middle-grade book My Mixed-Up Berry Blue Summer. If you didn’t win (or didn’t enter), however, don’t despair. Here’s another chance to do so.
I’m so excited—a new, LGBT-inclusive book for middle-grade readers, and a delightful one, at that! Jennifer Gennari’s My Mixed-Up Berry Blue Summer is about coming-of-age, coming out about one’s family, and baking pies. I’m happy to be doing a giveaway of two copies of the book, courtesy of publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt: one today, and one later this week. Read on for details.
