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.
Amid the wave of marriage equality news and posts this week, this one from Mediaite stood out for me for the way it cleverly shows the similarities between anti-gay and anti-miscegenation quotes. Here’s another scary quote on the same theme, related to children’s books.
This charming new book, The Very Beary Tooth Fairy, is not obviously gay-inclusive upon first read. But it does contain a hidden gay surprise—and both the author, Arthur Levine, and the illustrator, Sarah Brannen, are known in the LGBT community for their gay-inclusive works. This, their first collaboration, is a sweet tale that any family will likely enjoy.
It’s always exciting to share news of a brand-spanking new LGBT-inclusive children’s book, especially one as good as Monday is One Day, by Arthur Levine, the U.S. editor of Harry Potter—and I have three copies to give away this week!
There’s a new children’s book out featuring a same-sex couple getting married: Eric Ross’ My Uncle’s Wedding. “Wait a minute,” some of you may say. “Wasn’t that book published a while back?” No, but a similar one about a same-sex couple getting married, Sarah Brannen’s Uncle Bobby’s Wedding, came out from Penguin Book in 2008. Therein lies the problem.
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
Jonathan Kemmerer-Scovner has a spot-on essay at Critical Masses Media about same-sex parents in children’s books. “Children’s literature,” he observes, “acts as a testing ground for the social mores of a society. You may think we’re all progressing along at a fine rate, but if you really want to see where we’re at, stick it in a children’s book and see what that gets you.”
What does Olympic figure skater Johnny Weir have to do with gay guinea pigs? The talented Sarah Brannen, author and illustrator of Uncle Bobby’s Wedding, the much-challenged children’s book about two male guinea pigs who marry, made a name for herself with photographs and watercolors of ice skaters long before she turned to furry rodents.
It’s a joyous day in our nation’s capitol as the D.C. City Council voted for the second and final time in favor of legal marriage for same-sex couples in the District of Columbia. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty has promised to sign it soon, after which it will go to Capitol Hill for Congressional review before
Last week, I wrote about the performance of a Tony Award-winning gay-themed musical by students at Massachusetts’ Concord-Carlisle Regional High School. Anti-LGBT group MassResistance was up in arms about a high school producing a “depraved homosexual musical” and was trying to use director Peter Atlas’ supposed friendship with Assistant Deputy Secretary of Education Kevin Jennings to
