children’s books

Book Recommendation: There Is a Bird on Your Head!

My son is starting to read more on his own now, so I was delighted to find the lighthearted early reader There Is a Bird On Your Head! by Mo Willems, of Knuffle Bunny and Pigeon fame. The simple plot is that elephant Gerald has a bird on his head, and must rely on his […]

From Penguins to Chicken Butts: Diversity and Subversion in Children’s Books

“Guess what?” “Chicken Butt!” The classic schoolyard gag has found new life in Chicken Butt!, a picture book by critically acclaimed children’s author Erica Perl. There is nothing LGBT-specific about the story, but Perl’s illustrator is Henry Cole, the prolific artist who also did the drawings for Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson’s And Tango Makes

Lambda Award Finalists: Children’s/Young Adult

The 21st Lambda Literary Award finalists were announced this week. The six finalists for the LGBT Children’s/Young Adult category are fine books all, although I’m a little disappointed none of them show LGBT parents—as important as it also is to show LGBT kids. Actually, Hit the Road, Manny, is about a gay male nanny, so

Book Recommendations: All In a Day; City I Love

Here’s my second book-recommendation post in honor of the Share a Story – Shape a Future Blog Tour for Literacy. (The first is here; if you count my mention of the Harvey Milk book yesterday, then this is really the third book post this week.) I’m going to highlight two new picture books today, both

Book Recommendation: Panorama

As promised, I’m going to be doing a bunch of book recommendations this week to help promote the Share a Story – Shape a Future Blog Tour for Literacy. Thanks to Green Dads for alerting me to the event. As it happens, the fine publicity department at Abrams Books for Young Readers sent me a

Children’s Literacy Blog Event

Thanks to Steven at Book Dads for letting me know about Share a Story – Shape a Future: A Blog Tour for Literacy, which will kick off one week from now on March 9. The tour is “an ensemble effort not only to celebrate reading among those of us who already love books, but to

2009 Rainbow List of Children’s and Young Adult Books Is Out

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

2008 Cybil Nominees Include LGBT Books

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

Non-LGBT Book Recommendations for LGBT Families, II

Here’s my next recommendation for a book about non-traditional (or non-specific), but not necessarily LGBT families. (See my philosophy behind this as well as my first recommendation here.) Mommy, Do You Love Me?, by Jeanne Willis and illustrated by Jan Fearnley (Candlewick Press, 2008), tackles the same broad theme as the publisher’s classic Guess How

Non-LGBT Book Recommendations for LGBT Families

The number of children’s books featuring LGBT families is sadly low, and the number of quality ones even lower. I think the only new one in the picture book category this year was Uncle Bobby’s Wedding. This needs to change, and we need to do whatever we can to encourage both independent publishers and large

Scroll to Top