Nikki Barthelmess’s debut novel The Quiet You Carry is a serious drama that follows teenage protagonist, Victoria Parker, as she negotiates the foster care system. Victoria is a hardworking student who lost her mother to cancer when she was a young teenager. Her father remarried and Victoria lives with him […]
UnStoppable: How Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team Defeated Army Written by Art Coulson Illustrated by Nick Hardcastle Published by Capstone in 2018
I want to introduce readers to a small press worth following – My Family!/Dodi Press. My Family! specializes in reading material featuring diverse lesbian and gay parents swimming, vacationing, and preparing for science fairs with their happy children. The fact that the families are headed by same-sex parents is clear […]
Ahni and Her Dancing Secret Written by Shereen Rahming Illustrated by Jeff Vernon Published by Read and Glow Books in 2016
A few kids. A crash landing. An island that may or may not be inhabited (or possessed). It’s the stuff of a story we don’t seem able to stop telling. William Golding’s 1954 version, Lord of the Flies, lives on in our collective imagination, resurfacing in songs by Iron Maiden […]
In Elsa Takaoka’s picture book Yumi’s Extraordinary Collection, the title character, a Japanese American girl around eight-years-old, is looking for the perfect collection. Like her grandmother, Yumi is a story-teller, but unlike her grandmother Sayuri, Yumi tells stories through her art. To connect with her sick grandmother Yumi begins drawing […]
Amy Asks a Question… Grandma – What’s a Lesbian? (1996) was written by Jeanne Arnold and illustrated by Barbaba Lindquist, partners and co-founders of the book’s publisher, Mother Courage Press. Amy, a young girl with lesbian grandmothers, is called a lesbian at school when her and some girl friends hug […]
A Name on the Quilt (1999), published by Antheneum Books, was written by Jeannine Atkins and illustrated by Tad Hills. Simple, but warm illustrations face evocative text that describes the family and friends of Ron, a man who passed away from AIDS complications, sewing a quilt to memorialize him.
Published by New Family Press, How My Family Came to Be – Daddy, Papa and Me (2003) is written by Andrew R. Aldrich and illustrated by Mike Motz. Two white men adopt a black baby whose mother is described as too ill to care for him. The adoption process is […]
While You Were Sleeping, a 2004 publication by Burks Publishing/Trafford, is lyrically written by Stephanie Burks and brightly illustrated by Kelli Bienvenu. The brief book, about two moms waiting for the baby they are adopting to be born, and loving the child from the moment they meet, is a sweet […]
Raise Them Righteous 