This rhyming story looks at a common experience for many children: a school event that excludes their family because it is aimed at parents of one particular gender. Eddie and Pinky are a brother and sister who live with their Mommy and Mama. One day, while Eddie is playing with his friend Zeke (who was adopted), Pinky comes over, crying. She’s upset because her school is having a daddy-daughter dance, and “Mama can’t go.” Zeke asks, “What about asking your Mommy?” Pinky says that only daddies and daughters are allowed.
Eddie and Pinky’s moms, Zeke’s mama, and a neighbor then ask the school “to make a more inclusive rule.” They explain that while some children have a mother and father, some have only one or the other (though even this leaves out families that have neither, such as a child living with grandparents or other relatives). Mama then shows the teachers a sign promoting a “Family Dance.” The teachers “love the design” and the school holds the more inclusive dance. Another child is there with her dad; her friends and their parents are also there, the text says, although they are not shown in the illustrations.
The story closes with Eddie and Pinky “surrounded by love” and their proud parents. No matter who you live with, the book tells readers (and here it does mention grandparents and an uncle as well as two-mom and two-dad families), you are worthy of love and respect.
The whole story is set as if the characters are children’s toy animals. Author/illustrator Karen Bell-Zinn’s lovely soft watercolors show Eddie’s family as elephants, living in a house of Lincoln Logs; Zeke is a zebra and his mama a llama (which is helpful for the story’s rhymes), with a house of Lego bricks. At a time when some authors have moved away from depicting LGBTQ families with animal analogies (most notably in Uncle Bobby’s Wedding, whose second edition uses humans instead of the original guinea pigs), and some research indicates that children may learn social lessons better from human characters, this might seem a questionable choice—but on some pages here, we see the hand of a human child playing with these toys to help the action unfold. These aren’t just toy animals acting anthropomorphically, then; the (mostly) unseen child is likely retelling an incident that really happened, which brings the story back into the realm of relatable reality and offers readers and their adults a point of discussion.
There are a few things that feel a little rough in this self-published tale, though, such as why Pinky is initially upset that only Mama can’t go, and not that both of her moms are excluded. One could hypothesize that it has to do with the gender expression of the moms, and which one is likely to want to go to a dad-daughter dance, but since they are both elephants (without clothes or accessories) and the text never addresses gender expression, that doesn’t really hold. (I’m guessing the real answer lies with word choice to make the rhyme and meter fit.) Additionally, while Zeke shows caring to Pinky after hearing her distress, he never clearly indicates awareness that his single-parent family, too, will be excluded.
Still, the story shows how school events for just one gender of parent exclude different types of families, and how advocacy can create change. Some other picture books about exclusionary school activities, such as The Zero Dads Club and Stella Brings the Family, show the children themselves taking action and advocating for themselves; here, it is the adults who act. (And Little Bee: The Buzz About the Party, which as a chapter book can offer a more complex storyline, shows children taking action, but with support from key adults.) The approach that resonates with you may depend on your child’s age or your personal experience. If a child has encountered something like Pinky, though, then this might be a tale that gives them hope—and may spur them and the adults in their life to needed action.
