Elizabeth Bluemle

The Times, They Are....

"Come gather 'round people / Wherever you roam / And admit that the waters / Around you have grown...." (Bob Dylan, "The Times They Are A-Changin'")

Searching for new-baby books to give lesbian and gay parents has long been a fairly ridiculous endeavor. In addition to classic baby shower gifts, booksellers try to help their gay and lesbian clientele by searching their mental lists for books featuring just one parent of the right gender, or baby books with animals instead of people (though even this is tricky, as many animal families in books are represented as heterosexual, as evidenced by the mother's ubiquitous apron).

Until very recently, there was nothing beyond a scattered handful of picture books featuring gay or lesbian parents, and even those were aimed at children at least four years old. That's a long time to wait to see anything resembling your own family show up in a book. In addition, those few existing books tended to be more of an introduction to life in an alternative family than a real story or romp, the kind children want to read again and again.

It's hard enough to find books for very young readers featuring any kind of alternative familes: single parents (especially dads), adoptive families, kids raised by grandparents, kids in foster homes, kids in mixed-race households — even though nearly half the families in the country qualify as "alternative" in one way or another.* We need books for these millions of families — and anthropomorphized animals are an easy, but insufficient, substitute.

Like all overlooked minorities, gay families put up with their lack of representation in mainstream children's books with uncommon patience and grace; after all, there are plenty of wonderful books to be read. But that's not the same thing as also being able to see yourself in the pages and pictures of a book. Gay is the new Black.

Happily, there are some new offerings in the mix this season from sensitive and savvy publishers aware of the huge gap in the marketplace. I wish the editors at Tricycle Press could have seen my face when I opened their package containing two bright, glossy board books: Mommy, Mama, and Me, and Daddy, Papa, and Me, by Lesléa Newman; illus. by Carol Thompson (Tricycle, June 2009). Suffice it to say, I beamed. Then I got a little teary, thinking about how nothing like this existed when my nephews (with two moms) were born.

Twenty years ago, author Newman broke the children's book barrier with her earnest and brave—and censorship firestorm-causing—Heather Has Two Mommies. It was a good and necessary start. (Note: the 10th Anniversary edition was revised to take out the section on artificial insemination, probably an understandable elision given the age of its intended audience, but still a bit of a compromise.)

These new books have no explanation or exploration of topic — just sweet, simple rhyming fun that follows a tiny tot through her day with two loving parents. "Mommy picks me up up UP, Mama pours juice in my cup. Mommy gently combs my hair, Mama rocks me in her chair" leads to a fun day in the park, then a nap, supper, book time, bath time, and, finally, bedtime: "Now I'm tucked in nice and tight. Mommy and Mama kiss me goodnight." It's just like a regular baby book! And the art is unequivocally adorable. 

Daddy, Papa, and Me is similarly structured, but is more activity-filled. The characters dress up, paint, make paper airplanes, play with trucks, bake, throw a ball, sew, have a tea party, and run around in the park before collapsing on the family sofa. In this one, the toddler kisses her daddies goodnight in a wry nod to new-parent exhaustion. The dads' book reads as more typically "gay" than the moms' book; the tea-party illustration, while adorable, is a bit mince-y. I can't wait to hear gay dads weigh in on it.

A picture book for slightly older children—Gertrude is Gertrude is Gertrude is Gertrude, by Jonah Winter, illustrated by Calef Brown (Atheneum, February 2009)—presents Gertrude Stein in all her salon glory as a literary figure and an arts afficionado, and also as a companion to Alice B. Toklas. Their relationship isn't spelled out; it just is, the way the text mirrors Steins circuitous style without first explaining it. "Gertrude is Gertrude is Gertrude is Gertrude. / And Alice is Alice. / And Gertrude and Alice are Gertrude and Alice. / Well it's like this. You walk up the stairs, and there they are. They are sitting in chairs / and there they are...." And where they are is hosting parties for artists and writers; we get to meet Matisse, Picasso, Hemingway, Basket the poodle. And Gertrude writes, and Alice types, and they visit museums and drive along the countryside. It's a festive celebration of the life of an unconventional genius rendered in syncopated prose and inventive art; the Winter/Brown team is perfectly paired. (On a side note, I'd love to see Maira Kalman and Calef Brown collaborate on a he-said-she-said picture book. Work that out for me, wouldja? Thanks!)

Winter's earlier picture book about Frida Kahlo—Frida, gloriously, memorably illustrated by Ana Juan—is one of my all-time favorite picture-book biographies, along with M.T. Anderson's Strange Mr. Satie (fantastically illustrated by Petra Mathers). Those two books, along with the new Gertrude, fill me with joy; they prove that books about unconventional people have a wide audience of curious kids with a sense of humor and a lively interest in other kinds of lives. Hooray! (And, dibs on Elizabeth Bishop! I'm not kidding; the thing is half written. Writers, James Baldwin could use a great pb biographer. Just sayin'.)

And finally, one more notable mention: Patricia Polacco's In Our Mothers' House (Philomel, May 2009). This is definitely a book intended to introduce a traditional audience to alternative families, and it does so with tenderness and love. Having a writer/artist of Polacco's stature take on the topic will do a lot to reassure teachers and librarians who are on the fence about bringing books with gay or lesbian parents into their classrooms. It's also an open-armed celebration of mixed-race and adoptive families; the two moms, called Marmee and Meema, have three kids, all ethnically varied and equally adored. I think this book will be most popular with "straight" families, though I'd love to hear differently. There are a few aspects of the book that strike me as a little stereotypical; for instance, a tea party where both women are wildly uncomfortable wearing dresses, but overcome that unease to please their kids. And I had a couple of aesthetic wishes: is it wrong that I wanted the larger mom to be prettier? It's that old problem; if you only have a few representations of yourself out there, you'd prefer they err on the side of flattering. However, those are minor quibbles; the great good that this loving book will do far outweighs those nitpicky concerns.

This post is about books for younger readers, so I won't go into books for middle-grade kids and teens where I wish same-sex couples existed as a plain old boring backdrop set of parents. You know, Ramona the Pest with two moms. Or I Capture the Castle where the character of the blocked writer is a gay single dad. Something you almost wouldn't notice—unless you were a kid who had never read anything even remotely reflecting your life. (Tim Wynne-Jones's The Uninvited may be such an animal; I'll report back when I've finished it.)

Publishers, you're sitting on a small gold mine, and now is the time to reach out with some great titles and as targeted a market as you'll ever find. May your lists reflect the real melting pot that is America, and may the books be brilliant and sparkling, and not merely politically correct. There are some great starts here, and I'd love to see more.

Readers, what say you?

*A few statistics: In the 2000 census, married couples numbered just over half of all family types in this country (51.7%, a drop of 3.5% since the 1990 census; presumably we'll see that number drop even lower in next year's census). In 1976, there were 300,000-500,000 children with a gay parent; click here for more info.

Posted by Elizabeth Bluemle on May 12, 2009 | Comments (8)