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 from Abrams Books for Young Readers. Each takes a different environment as the subject for its poetry.

The first, All In a Day, by Newbery Award winner Cynthia Rylant, is a single story-poem about the promise of a day and our need to make the most of it. The bold cut-paper illustrations by Nikki McClure show a young boy exploring the natural wonders of his backyard and the woods nearby. It’s a peaceful, hopeful book, and a gentle read for bedtime and other quiet moments.

The illustrations show the boy with both an adult woman and an adult man, but never both at the same time, so same-sex or single parents could easily adapt the adult figures to those in their own families.

City I Love, by Lee Bennett Hopkins, is a vibrant collection of 18 different poems about cities around the world. Each focuses on a small detail of urban life—a merry-go-round, a fire hydrant, a kite, a mother pigeon, the weather.

Illustrator Marcellus Hall has drawn for the New Yorker and the Wall Street Journal, among other places, but seems as much at home depicting urban life for children as for adults. While the drawings show people going about their lives in their various cities, an anthropomorphic dog with a backpack shows up unobtrusively in each picture. It is a hidden treasure for children to spot, representative of a traveler and outsider who is nevertheless curious about his or her new surroundings.

All in a Day is out now; City I Love is technically launching in April, for National Poetry Month, but it looks like it’s available now on Amazon.

Thanks to Green Dads for alerting me to the Share a Story event.

More Problems with U.S. Census and Same-Sex Families

Thanks to the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), same-sex couples who live together will be defined as “unmarried partners” in the 2010 U.S. Census. Their children will be counted as belonging to single parents, even if the couples are legally wed in a state that permits them to do so. If the partners list themselves as wife and wife or husband and husband, the final results will still list them as “unmarried partners.” (The census will retain their original answers, though, offering a slim hope for being counted through the work of resourceful doctoral students or an organization like the Williams Institute at UCLA.)

That much has already been reported. There are some other difficulties with the Census and same-sex parents, however, that no one has spotted yet. Let’s say you’re a couple in a state that allows both same-sex parents to go on the child’s birth certificate without needing an adoption. (Doing an adoption as well is a good idea for when you travel, but let’s say you haven’t done this yet, or have, but don’t consider yourself an “adoptive” parent to the child you planned with your partner from the start.) Let’s also not forget that adoption is not an option for non-biological parents in a growing number of states.

The 2010 Census questions ask about the first person in the household. For each additional person, they ask, “How is this person related to Person 1? Mark ONE box.” How would you mark this if you are the non-biological parent, answering the question about your child: Read the rest of this post »

Milk: Good for the Whole Family

Milk, starring Sean Penn in his Academy Award-winning role, is now available on DVD and on demand.

If you haven’t seen it yet, do make an effort. It’s well worth it, and raises some spooky parallels between what happened with the gay rights movement in the 1970′s and what’s happening today. It’s not a perfect film, and one could be picky about some of the historical details, but I think that’s missing the point. It is an important (and mostly accurate) story about a great American and has the potential to change hearts and minds about the LGBT community.

You may also be interested in the 1984 documentary The Times of Harvey Milk (and here on demand), which is just as compelling as the Penn film.

For older elementary school or early middle school kids, check out The Harvey Milk Story, by Kari Krakow. It’s a picture book, but does mention the shooting, so be forewarned if your kids are young. It oversimplifies a bit, as is the way with most history books for that age group, but conveys Milk’s significance with warmth and appreciation. (The one gross error is that it says Milk was the first openly gay elected official in the country, when in fact he was the fifth—though clearly the one with the biggest impact at the time.) It would be a good way to explain to your kids who the man is whose face is on the DVD box on the coffee table.

Family Voices International: IV

Here is the fourth interview in this phase of the Family Voices series. This time around, I am teaming up with Julieta of Ju, An y el Perro Activista to extend the series to include non-U.S. LGBT families. Julieta has also done Spanish translations of all the interviews, which you will find after the English below, and at her blog.

Federica, her six-year-old daughter Arianna, and her “future wife” Cecilia live in Rome. Federica was married to a man when she fell in love with Cecilia at the hospital where they both worked as nurses. Federica offers some wise words below about the power of love and family. Read the rest of this post »

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 boxful of their new titles for spring, with no obligation. It is a fine collection throughout, with the superb artwork that is Abrams’ hallmark, as well as memorable and engaging stories. (At least according to my five-year-old, who was a willing participant in my review process.) I’m happy to write about them.

My pick for today is Panorama: A Foldout Book, by Fani Marceau and Joelle Jolivet. Read the rest of this post »

Iron Chef Cat Cora Has a Bun in the Oven

Iron chef and lesbian mom Cat Cora is four-and-a-half months pregnant! She and her partner Jennifer already have two sons and Jennifer is also pregnant and due in April. The couple isn’t wasting any time expanding their family. (Cora is 41, which may explain the rush.)

PR Newswire gives us the details:

The Cora’s [sic] share a unique family story in which both women have carried the other’s biological child. Cat’s pregnancy is a result of in-vitro fertilization with Jennifer’s embryo. The couple’s sons, ages 5 years and 23 months, were both carried by Jennifer. She was artificially inseminated for her first pregnancy, but the second she carried to term using Cat’s embryo. In Jennifer’s current pregnancy, both women’s embryos were implanted, so the biological mother is unknown. They do not to plan to conduct DNA testing to determine the baby’s biological mother.

Each of the couple’s children was conceived through insemination or in-vitro with the same anonymous sperm donor, making the children biological brothers.

Hmm. I have to question that “unique family story” part, though. Any readers who have done the same thing, please raise your hands (or leave a comment). Helen and I did half of it, with her carrying my egg. (We’re old enough now that we’re not going to try for another.) If you want to read about how we did it, I’ve described it in detail in Injections, Eggs, and Attorneys: How We Conceived.

Still, Cora’s celebrity is good for the visibility of LGBT parents. I particularly like that the couple announced they don’t know and don’t care which of them is the biological mother of the child Jennifer is carrying. All that matters is that the children will be well loved. Chances are they’ll be well fed, too.

Best wishes to the rapidly growing family.

(Thanks, Lez Get Real.)

The Connecticut Catholic Conference’s Misplaced Advocacy

Saturday’s Hartford Courant reports:

Concerned that the state’s new same-sex marriage law would infringe on religious liberties, the Connecticut Catholic Conference today proposed some broad exemptions which it believes are necessary to protect those rights.

The law does not require Catholic priests—or any other clergy member—to preside over same-sex weddings.

However, the church is seeking additional exemptions. For instance, it wants to ensure that a florist opposed to gay marriage on religious grounds not be forced to sell flowers to a same-sex couple.

As my brother (who is straight but has a sense of humor) said to me, though, “Does anyone really believe that there are any florists who are opposed to gay marriage?”

(H/T, David Hart at Pam’s.)

The L Word: Last Words or Launch Pad?

Tonight on Showtime’s pre-game show before the grand finale of The L Word, actor Laurel Holloman (“Tina Kennard”) said she would tell her children, “It will be a different world for them, and this [show] will be a little piece of that change.”

“Groundbreaking” is perhaps the most overused word associated with media coverage of The L Word. It was not in fact the first show to portray lesbians on television. The first lesbian kiss happened back in 1991 on LA Law. Queer As Folk preceded the lovely ladies on Showtime, and even included a few lesbians of its own. Still, a show by, for, and about lesbians was indeed new territory back in 2004.

The show garnered criticism for not representing “real” lesbians; for not portraying [insert your favorite] aspect of the LGBT community. It gathered a more mainstream audience than even Queer As Folk, however, and it is not beyond reason to give it credit for helping to change some people’s minds for the better about the LGBT community.

What are your thoughts about the impact of The L Word, both on the LGBT community itself and the wider community around us? Has it indeed cleared the way for other positive, realistic portrayals of LGBT life, or are those stories yet to be written? What aspects of LGBT life would you most want to see in a new series, or worked into existing shows?

Finally, for the fans: What did you think of the way the series ended?