Pride and anti-prejudice
2+Tango; Pride - Harvey Milk; Rainbow Revolutionaries; Pride – An Inspirational History
I love a rainbow. Any and every. Even in spite of the rampant commercial rainbow washing we see in June, and especially because of it’s perfection as a symbol of representation and inclusion. This June, though, my mind is mostly on legal protections, their importance, and their fragility, so I’m queuing up kids books that represent the core questions and what’s on the line: How can you be? Who can you love? Who can be a parent? Who should decide? What is fair and right, and how can you protect it? Here are four nonfiction books to help engage your littles and in-betweens.
“And Tango Makes Three” tells the true story of a pair of partnered male penguins who incubate an egg and raise a chick together. I like this book because it is so simple, AND it presents all the salient details.
And Tango Makes Three. 2005, Justin Richardson, Peter Parnell, Henry Cole. Target age: toddler-PreK [read aloud, libraries, book stores]
If you and your kiddo become curious about Roy and Silo’s golden years, their eventual separation presents an opportunity to reflect on the malleability of identity as a necessary outcome of contextual behavior. Bonus reading for teens and adults: “Queer: A Graphic History” (2016, Meg-John Barker; Julia Scheele, libraries, book stores)
“Pride: The Story of Harvey Milk and the Rainbow Flag” is a broad-strokes story of how the rainbow flag became associated with the fight for LGBTQ+ rights and protections, with Harvey Milk as its commissioner and champion. Your mileage will vary based on your family’s proximity to the fight, your ability to fill in important details, and the age of your kiddo. It does directly refer to Milk and Moscone’s assassinations, which gives necessary gravity to storytelling that is often quite abstract.
Pride: The Story of Harvey Milk and the Rainbow Flag. 2018, Rob Sanders, Steven Salerno. Target age: Gr1-3 [author read aloud, libraries, book stores]
“Rainbow Revolutionaries” is a collection of short biographies of influential queer folks from all over history. Each luminous spread is evocative and inspiring. Check out the bibliography because you and your young reader will certainly want to learn more about everyone in the book.
Rainbow Revolutionaries: 50 LGBTQ+ People Who Made History. 2020, Sarah Prager, Sarah Papworth. Target age: Gr3-7 [author interview, libraries, book stores]
“Pride: An Inspirational History of the LGBTQ+ Movement” is a very helpful little reference combining historical overview, profiles of significant leaders and change makers, and short, self-written profiles of young people today describing what pride means to them. It’s perfect for my 8.5yo, both in its mix of voices, and its balance of difficult history and hopeful outlook. [Aside: this is published by Jessica Kingsley, my current favorite publisher for super important and underrepresented kid stuff. They’re UK based and biased, and still really wonderful.]
Pride: An Inspirational History of the LGBTQ+ Movement. 2022, Stella Caldwell, Layton Williams. Target age: School Library Journal says Gr6+, but I’m letting my rising Gr3 kiddo at it [libraries, book stores]
Further reading…
Human Rights Campaign - Welcoming Schools – “LGBTQ+ History & Pride: Engaging Lessons and Books”
American Library Association – “LGBTQIA+ Resources for Children: A Bibliography—Nonfiction”