It’s Purim, a Jewish holiday of storytelling and costumes that commemorates the deliverance of the Jews in the Persian Empire from a plot to destroy them. It’s also the only Jewish holiday to have a picture book featuring a child with gay dads.
This Day in JuneThe American Library Association (ALA) on Monday announced its annual Stonewall Book Awards for LGBT-inclusive children’s and young adult books, as well as its more extensive Rainbow List of notable titles. Let’s take a look.
I wrote at the beginning of November about an effort to publish Zak’s Safari: A Story about Donor-Conceived Kids of Two-Mom Families, a book for and about donor-conceived kids of two moms. I’m happy to report that (perhaps thanks to many of you) it’s been funded and the book is now available on Amazon.
If you haven’t already gotten a copy of The Christmas Truck, the new holiday-themed book featuring a family with two dads, it’s not (quite) too late. (Christmas has 12 days, after all.) Here’s a video about it to give you a taste, or to bring it to life in a new way if you’ve read it already.
LGBTQ-inclusive children’s books can make great holiday presents. Here are some new ones from the past year to add to your kids’ collections.
Many of us are starting our holiday shopping this week, so it’s great to be able to share a fun new Christmas picture book starring a child with two dads!
If you’re part of a two-mom family, like mine, that had kids through donor insemination, you may have had trouble finding books that explain to your young children how they came to be. A new Kickstarter project hopes to add to that small list.
Combine four boys of assorted ages, two dads, a Maine coon cat, and a dog named Sir Puggleton into a home and stir well. Sprinkle on a doting aunt, a surly neighbor, and assorted classmates. Season with a collapsing backyard hockey rink, an untimely power outage, and a Thanksgiving culinary disaster. Dana Alison Levy’s superb new middle-grade novel, The Misadventures of the Family Fletcher (Delacorte Press), combines all these ingredients and more to create a hysterically funny story that is simultaneously full of heart.
Just in time for the Jewish New Year comes a new picture book by Lesléa Newman, author of Heather Has Two Mommies, taking us on a year-long journey through the Jewish holidays.
Madame Martine is the latest picture book from Sarah Brannen, the author and illustrator whose gay-inclusive children’s book Uncle Bobby’s Wedding sits on many of our shelves. It doesn’t have any explicitly LGBTQ characters this time, but it’s a charming tale and I’m happy to support an LGBTQ-inclusive author even on other projects, especially when they’re as charming as this one.
