Acclaimed children’s author Maurice Sendak died yesterday at the age of 83. I love his books, both the words and the pictures, and their exploration of “the darker side of childhood,” as NPR puts it. Darker, yes, but never bleak or hopeless.
I mentioned a few weeks ago that children’s books dealing with issues of gender identity are still few and far between. A colleague of mine, however, recently recommended Andrea U’ren’s Pugdog, a picture book about a gender nonconforming dog.
A new American Library Association (ALA) list of recommended LGBTQ-inclusive books for children and young adults shows that characters who are transgender, bisexual, and of ambiguous identity are taking their place solidly beside more traditional gay and lesbian ones.
Wisconsin high school librarian Lynn Evarts, who chairs the ALA committee that chooses the annual “Rainbow Bibliography,” said she is “very happy” that the fifth annual version of the list, announced January 22, is so diverse.
My third-grade son has been enjoying biographies, learning things even I didn’t know about Thomas Edison and Benjamin Franklin. So when I read that Frank Kameny, one of the founding fathers of the gay equality movement, was honored November 15 by a memorial service at the Cannon House Office Building near the U.S. Capitol, I
This year brought us several new books, fiction and non-fiction, featuring lesbian- and gay-headed familes. While we might hope for greater quantity (and greater diversity across the LGBT spectrum), the quality was at least very good. Here are some of the best.
Just a few articles this week, but they’re juicy, so enjoy! Denise Balkissoon writes in Toronto’s Globe and Mail about “The seven habits of highly effective lesbian families.” “A series of studies in Canada and elsewhere over the past decade has found that the children of lesbians aren’t just well-adjusted—they excel.”It’s a good article for explaining some of the
More than 20 years after she wrote Heather Has Two Mommies, the first picture book for and about children with two happily coupled lesbian parents, Lesléa Newman is still turning out must-reads for lesbian families. Her latest work, Donovan’s Big Day, is a delightful story about a boy preparing for the wedding of his two
OK, no Trojan guinea pigs here really, but Sarah Brannen, author and illustrator of Uncle Bobby’s Wedding, about two gay guinea pigs and their niece (see my longer piece on it here), has illustrated a new book, Digging for Troy: From Homer to Hisarlik. Brannen didn’t write this one—the authors are Jill Rubalcaba and Eric H. Cline—and
The American Library Association (ALA) has published its fourth annual Rainbow Bibliography, a list of recommended children’s and young adult books with significant LGBTQ content. The list is a yet another arrow in the quiver of those looking to support LGBTQ youth and children of LGBTQ parents—and I don’t need to tell you how important that is these days.
2010 brought us a number of excellent films—and a few books—about LGBT families. Here are some you may want to add to your holiday list. Mom’s Apple Pie: The Heart of the Lesbian Mothers’ Custody Movement, a documentary by Jody Laine, Shan Ottey and Shad Reinstein, gives us a look at early custody cases involving
