The revised edition of the 2008 book about a girl worried that her favorite uncle will no longer have time for her after he marries his boyfriend. The text has been updated in many small ways, and the original anthropomorphic guinea pigs have been replaced by human characters: a White girl and her uncles, one White and one Black.
I’ve loved the story since the original, one of the first LGBTQ-inclusive picture books that wasn’t “about” being LGBTQ. The girl Chloe’s concern was always about her uncle’s attention, not the gender of his beloved Jamie. Brannen told me in an interview that as the years went by, though, “more and more picture books with LGBTQ content were published, and eventually my book went out of print. I was heartbroken, because I felt that there was still a need for it. The whole point of the book is that the wedding of Bobby and his boyfriend Jamie is just part of a fabric of a family. Except for a couple of pronouns, the story would be identical if Bobby was marrying a woman.”
After it went out of print, the rights reverted to Brannen, which meant she could sell it to a new publisher. “I talked to my agent about it and then moved on to new projects,” she said. “I was shocked when he called and said that he had fielded an offer on the manuscript from Little Bee Books.” Little Bee had created a partnership with GLAAD to publish LGBTQ-inclusive children’s books, and wanted Uncle Bobby’s Wedding to be among them.
For the new edition, the broad story is the same, but Brannen has revised the text in some subtle ways. “We picked over the text really carefully, tweaking it word by word to polish it and make it fresh. I’m very pleased with how it turned out,” she said. “There were a couple of sentences I had come to think of as clunky and I was delighted to be able to fix them!” Chloe also feels more upbeat and active now: she’s “happy as a ladybug” when her Mama plans a family picnic; at the wedding, “She was so happy, she felt like doing a cartwheel.”
Maybe animals made the story more accessible in 2008, but in 2020, it seems appropriate to let my characters inhabit their true form.
The bigger change, though, is in the book’s look and feel. Brannen explained, “The new editor wanted to publish the book with new illustrations, showing people instead of animals. I had chosen animals originally to make the story universal, but I really wrote it about people. Maybe animals made the story more accessible in 2008, but in 2020, it seems appropriate to let my characters inhabit their true form.” Now, Chloe is a White human girl; Bobby is her White uncle and Jamie is Black. Other characters are of diverse skin tones.
Although Brannen is an award-winning illustrator, London-based illustrator Lucia Soto was chosen to do the drawings this time. Brannen said, “I had already illustrated the book once, and I was very happy to turn it loose and see what someone else came up with. I love Lucia Soto’s artwork. It’s so happy and stylish, perfect for the story.” I always liked Brannen’s softly colored illustrations and whimsical guinea pigs, who had a kind of Beatrix Potter charm, but I also understand and fully support all of the creative changes of the new edition. Soto’s new, peopled images keep the warmth of the originals, but add bright, vibrant colors that make them feel more dynamic.
Brannen noted, too, “The editor also had the idea of setting the story in the American South—in my mind, Georgia (I have relatives there). We tweaked the food the family eats at the picnic to reflect this, and made a number of minor changes to the text.” That’s a good call; according to UCLA’s Williams Institute, about one-third of LGBT adults in the U.S. live in a southern state, and “Childrearing among same-sex couples is highest in the South, Mountain West, and Midwest areas of the country.” The southern aura is gentle enough, though, that readers could also imagine the story situated in other regions if they wish—a lighthouse scene might evoke places along many coasts, for example.
The original Uncle Bobby’s Wedding was the eighth most challenged book in the U.S. in 2008, according to the American Library Association. As it happens, I broke the story of the very first challenge to the book, just a few months after its original release, when a Colorado library patron asked that the book be removed, placed in a special area, or labeled “some material may be inappropriate for young children.” As I discussed in that piece, Library Director James LaRue’s response was (and remains) a stellar example of how to deal with such challenges (and it’s not surprising that LaRue went on to be executive director of both the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom and the Freedom to Read Foundation).
I’m delighted to see Uncle Bobby’s Wedding not only back in print, but in an edition that’s even better and bolder. Little rainbow flags among the wedding paraphernalia on the endpapers indicate that the book’s past challenges have only strengthened the creators’ and publisher’s resolve. Uncle Bobby and Jamie are out and proud, even though the book isn’t “about” them being a same-sex couple per se. They’re getting married, Chloe will have two uncles, and there’s nothing that can stop them.
