This story, told in sing-song rhyme, opens on the happy day of a Pride parade. For eight pages, we see the families, drag queens, and others eager to take part or just to watch. To this point, it reminds me somewhat of Gayle Pitman’s This Day in June, also set at a Pride parade—although A Day of Pride also adds the mystical Miss Rainbow, who observes the proceedings from a cloud above.
Then, things suddenly get grim as the Witch of Shame appears, dressed all in black with a long, striped nose and long gray hair. She finds a young boy dressed brightly for the parade and tells him, ““Your colors are silly, what a mess you are!/People like you don’t go very far.” The boy “feels ashamed, his eyes fill with tears,/And deep in his heart, he hurts and fears.” Miss Rainbow encourages him, however, and he goes away with a smile. The witch then tells a girl, “What kind of girl doesn’t wear a dress?/And your hair is so short—Riley, you’re a mess!” Miss Rainbow again comes to the rescue. Finally, though, the witch turns to Miss Rainbow herself, making her doubt her ability to help people. The people of the parade, however, come streaming in and help bring back Miss Rainbow’s smile. Even the witch sees the errors of her ways, exchanges her black clothes for pink, and declares herself the “Witch of Love.”
As with many books in which a character teases or bullies someone for being LGBTQ (and there are already a lot of them), I worry that children who have not yet been exposed to such harassment will have fears put into their heads by this story, even though things turn out well in the end. After real-life situations where such harassment has already occurred, perhaps a book like this, which shows the victims finding courage and the perpetrator changing her ways, can be of use. I wouldn’t use it as an introduction to LGBTQ characters or Pride, however. Other books, like Pitman’s, take a purely joyous approach, which feels like a better starting point for young readers.
