Mary Hoffman

This book has been banned, so of course I immediately read it. The ban is at least for showing same-sex parents, I don't know if the people who banned it could tolerate anything else, like mixed-race families, etc. There's nothing remotely about sex, let alone is there anything graphic. I had to laugh when I got to the families headed by two women - a friend of mine lived like that, her father died and her aunt lived with them. In those days, her mother and aunt were probably paid less than men who did the same job, because men have to support a family. So did her mother, of course, but that's what she gets for being so careless as to lose her husband. That was back when, as the author and illustrator say, most families in books were a white heterosexual couple with a boy and a girl. It seems to me that there was also usually a baby, who might or might not have had a specified sex or gender.

I think this is terrific. The sooner people recognize that not everyone is like them, the better. Whatever the book banners might prefer, people are extremely varied, and banning this book, or any number of other books is not going to alter the fact that there has never been a time when people conformed, or were able to conform, to their ideal.

The books is charming. The illustrations are lively and expressive, and it covers an enormous range of variety - not just differences in race, gender, and number of parents, but also religion, adoption, hobbies, communication styles. Brava to both the authors.

They also produced the equally charming and also banned, Babies, Babies Everywhere.. Or perhaps that was Everywhere Babies by Susan Meyer.… (mer)