Hi Parentberries!
So, my local library is driving me a wee bit mad because they’ve gone and purchased a tonne of LBGTQ+ and Pride books which are really overtly about Pride parades etc, even board books in the section for 2-3 year olds, like this Gay-B-C one:
The Gay BCs story time with Kiimia - YouTube and one called “Pride123”.
My kids who love their ABCs and rainbows keep wanting to issue them, and asking a load of questions… and they’re really tricky to answer, because my 2 and 4 year old don’t know about sex yet so how can I explain bisexual in an honest way? And my 2 year old boy adores wearing pink tutu dresses and loves Minnie Mouse, but I can’t easily explain trans without explaining social constructs around gender as well and I really don’t want my boy thinking he’s trans when the actual issue is just that society is too limiting on how it thinks boys and girls should act and dress (I have tried to discuss it clearly as people’s bodies not matching whether they’re actually a girl or body, but still feel like that’s pretty confusing age 2!) And to talk about why we have Pride parades I also have to talk about how some people are NOT accepting of other people, which is quite a negative conversation.
So it’s got me wondering, what picture books do you know of that are really awesome at being inclusive (whether of other sexualities, genders, religions, cultures, disabilities or physical differences) WITHOUT being ABOUT it? It would be lovely to have more books where there’s a family with two Dads but the story is age-appropriate and it’s just not a big deal, that sort of thing?