2010 Rainbow List Is Out

The 2010 Rainbow Project Bibliography is out!

The Bibliography is a list of recommended titles for youth from birth to age 18 that contain “significant and authentic” GLBTQ content. The titles are chosen by the GLBT Round Table and the Social Responsibilities Round Table of the American Library Association. This is not a list of every children’s book published with GLBTQ content, but rather a set of books chosen by librarians for both quality and content. The books for this year’s list were published between July 2008 and October 2009.

The Rainbow Project Web site has the full list. Below are the books on the list that I’ve written about here at Mombian, with links to my original posts.

• Lo, Malinda. Ash. Gr. 8+.
• Newman, Lesléa. Il. Carol Thompson. Daddy, Papa, and Me and Mommy, Mama, and Me. Pre-K.
• (The above entries were noted for exceptional merit, along with Luis Alberto Urrea’s Into the Beautiful North, and Ed. Michael Cart’s How Beautiful the Ordinary: Twelve Stories of Identity, which I have not read.)
• Polacco, Patricia. In Our Mother’s House. Gr. K-3.
• Walliams, David. Il. Quentin Blake. The Boy in the Dress. Gr. 3+.
• Ed. Mitchell Gold with Mindy Drucker. Crisis: 40 Stories Revealing the Personal, Social, and Religious Pain and Trauma of Growing Up Gay in America. Gr. 7+.
• Hart, Melissa. Gringa: A Contradictory Girlhood. Gr. 8+.

Congratulations to all the selected authors and illustrators!

TV Alert: A Family Is A Family Is A Family

From Rosie O’Donnell comes “A Family Is a Family Is a Family,” a great-looking new documentary premiering this Sunday, January 31, at 7 p.m. ET on HBO.

Much of the film features children talking about their families, including ones with same-sex parents, single parents, adoptive families, and mixed-heritage families. Part of it features Rosie talking with her daughter Vivienne Rose about how their family came to be—and how, even after Rosie’s recent separation from Kelli, the children’s other mom, they are still a family. There are musical and animated interludes, including original songs by They Might Be Giants and Sweet Honey in the Rock.

For one segment, however, I have to fall back on the HBO description:

O’Donnell’s tongue-in-cheek performance of “My Science Project” tells the animated story of a young girl whose class project describes the scientific way she came to be. And Frank Sinatra’s rendition of “Too Marvelous for Words” is accompanied by an animated sequence of a sperm in top hat serenading a glamorous egg.

It looks like a wonderful film, but parents should be alert that it could raise some questions about biology and reproduction. Be prepared to provide fuller explanations to your kids if these are topics you haven’t discussed with them yet. For those looking for a way to explain those issues, however, the film could be just the help you need. It seems like the bulk of the film is rightly on the children and their family interactions, though, not on the mechanics of their origins.

Trailer after the jump: Read the rest of this post »

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

I’ve been posting this quote from Coretta Scott King, wife of Martin Luther King, Jr., every year at this time, but I think it bears repeating. Mrs. King was speaking at Lambda Legal’s 25th Anniversary Luncheon in 1998:

As Martin once said, ‘We are all tied together in a single garment of destiny… an inescapable network of mutuality… I can never be what I ought to be until you are allowed to be what you ought to be.’

Therefore, I appeal to everyone who believes in Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream to make room at the table of brother and sisterhood for lesbian and gay people.

After the jump, a number of books for young children about Dr. King. What struck me most about these books was the quality of the illustrations, consistently a notch above the average in children’s literature, and a fitting tribute to their subject. Read the rest of this post »

Another Non-Bio Mom Fights for Her Rights

You’ve heard the story before (and before that). A lesbian couple splits up. The biological mother tries to deny custody to the non-biological mother. They go to court. (In the case of Janet Jenkins and Lisa Miller, they did so for years, with disastrous results when the bio mom flouted court orders and went into hiding with the child.)

The case of Kim Smith and Maggie Quale has a small twist, however. Quale, the biological mother, is now in a relationship with Shawn Wallace, whom she and Smith used as their known donor when the women were still a couple. Quale and Wallace now want full custody of the resulting twins, reports the Mercury News. Although Smith did not adopt the children, both she and Quale are listed as parents on their birth certificate. I’m not a lawyer, but my understanding is that under California law, that should be enough to secure her rights. [Nancy Polikoff, who is a lawyer, says it's not the birth certificate that matters, but rather the non-bio mom's conduct.] (That’s yet another reason, however, that non-bio moms should do a second-parent adoption just in case, if their state allows it.)

The only good thing about this case, if there is one, is that Quale, who says she is bisexual, has not renounced her orientation or enlisted any right-wing help, as in so many of the previous cases. Her lawyer says Smith’s lawsuit “has put them in the painful position of asserting their rights while still appearing to support the growing effort to protect the rights of gay parents.”

Hmm. Methinks that supporting the rights of gay parents includes supporting the parenthood of non-bio parents. I’m not sure I buy her reasoning. At least she’s not being virulently anti-gay about it, though. Compared with most of these cases, that’s a small gain. For Smith, however, I fear it is not enough.

Weekly Political Roundup

The Prop 8 Case

Everyone is covering the Prop 8 case. Here are a few of the sites with people on the ground at the courtroom. (As you may have heard, the U.S. Supreme Court banned videocasting of the trial. Jenny Pizer, Lambda Legal’s Marriage Project director, explains why.)j

• Lisa Keen has a good summary up already on this morning’s testimony by Dr. Michael Lamb of Cambridge University, who very patiently explained to the defense that it is the quality of a child’s parents, not their gender, which matters.
• Karen Ocamb and several others at LGBT POV are also giving daily updates.
• Davina Kotulski, the former Executive Director of Marriage Equality USA, is writing about it at Bilerico as well as LGBT POV.
• The Courage Campaign is covering it through their special Prop 8 Trial Tracker site. Read the rest of this post »

Helping Haiti

I was going to write a post about donating to Haiti, but my spouse Helen did it instead. She’s pulled out a list of all the organizations providing relief in Haiti that are rated four stars by Charity Navigator. Charity Navigator also has some useful tips on evaluating who should get your money.

We’re going to include our son in the donation process, making sure that he understands why we are giving and why it is important to be good world citizens. (You may also enjoy Helen’s post on Pennies for Peace, another organization we support with our son’s involvement.)

How do you include your kids in your charitable giving or volunteer efforts?

“She Got Me Pregnant”: Episode 96

Helen and I share two new CD’s of lesbian- and gay-inclusive kids’ music (about which more here). We then discuss arranging playdates when you’re the only LGBT family in the school. Plus: extra sprinkles!

(If the embedded video above doesn’t work for you, try it at Dailymotion.)

Brought to you in partnership with After Ellen.

Careful with That Turkey Baster!

There’s funny in the Prop 8 trial, too. From the Mercury News:

Defense lawyer Nicole Moss asked plaintiffs’ expert Letitia Peplau, a UCLA professor, whether gay couples could “accidentally” have children out of wedlock. She replied, “If your question is whether two lesbians can, accidentally, spontaneously, impregnate each other, not to my knowledge.”