A reader wrote to ask if I knew of any books for young children that discussed getting a new sibling—but which did not feature a mom and a dad for parents. Great question. The answer is that (to the best of my knowledge) there is one, And Baby Makes 4 by Judith Benjamin. (Don’t confuse […]
Go librarians. The American Library Association (ALA) this week announced it will add an annual award for “English-language works for children and teens of exceptional merit relating to the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered experience.”
Can Harry Potter help our children learn to deal with bullies? That’s a question I tackle over at Our Big Gayborhood, the group blog run by the wonderful Lori Hahn, whom some of you may know from her erstwhile blog Hahn at Home. Thanks to Lori for inviting me to contribute a post!
Via the Advocate comes a wonderful interview with the family of a gender variant child, five-year-old Dyson. (Video below.) Dyson’s mother even wrote a book, My Princess Boy: A mom’s story about a young boy who loves to dress up, for other families like theirs. I have not yet read the book myself, but the
I’m very excited to let you all know that Let’s Get This Straight: The Ultimate Handbook for Youth with LGBTQ Parents is hitting bookstores today. It’s a practical, inspirational, and forthright guide for pre-teens and teens with LGBTQ parents—and we parents could benefit from reading it as well. I had the pleasure of interviewing Tina
It’s Banned Book Week once again—the American Library Association’s annual celebration of the freedom to read. I’ll refer you back to the piece I wrote for Banned Books Week last year, “Penguins, Rabbits, and Guinea Pigs: In Celebration of Banned Books,” noting that LGBT-themed books continue to be banned or challenged, as a July case
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.”
(Originally published in Bay Windows, July 23, 2010. Regular readers will recognize many of the items in this mid-year roundup from previous reviews I’ve done—but there’s one new item in there, so read on.) It’s been a good year so far for books and media about LGBT parenting—but not so much for items aimed at
(Originally published as my Mombian newspaper column.) A long-running study of lesbian families created through donor insemination made headlines June 7 when it published new results showing that teens from these families tend to do better than their peers socially and academically. While these findings from the National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study are positive, they
I’m vlogging solo this week—Helen is away on business again, but I’ll carry on without her. Because the 5th Annual Blogging for LGBT Families Day is coming up on June 1, and I’m all about getting the word out, I invite viewers to participate. I also share brand new works by authors of some of
