All this rhythm and ritual has been road-tested by years of parenting and a statistically significant number of controlled experiments (no ritual? bedlam!). It’s no simple matter, to ease their young bodies and minds from the hurly-burly of the day into the waiting arms of Morpheus. Before, I would never have put such stock in this kind of stuff–in fact, I would have considered it far more “routine” than “ritual,” and derided it. No longer. I’ve learned.

I had just finished reading Maurice Sendak’s In the Night Kitchen to the boychild whilst the girlchild bore a hole in page after page of her latest American Girl historical yarn.  We were gathering our things, and the boychild was already heading into the bathroom on Mama’s back.  I had been thinking something as I was reading Night Kitchen.  I’m not sure what led me to it, but I made the judgement call that his older sister was old enough to hear a little something about the slings and arrows that fly around the books they read.

“You know, some folks don’t want kids to read that book,” I say, pointing to Maurice Sendak’s sweet, quasi-Dadaist tale of a boy’s dreamtime adventures.

“What does that mean, ‘Don’t want kids to read the book’?”

“Well, they don’t want school or town libraries to stock the book, and they write letters and wage campaigns for the libraries not to make the books available to the public.”

“Why, Baba?” she asks.

“Some folks are uncomfortable that it includes pictures of the boy naked.” I assume that’s the main complaint. Otherwise there’s some kind of anti-Oliver Hardy movement that I’m unaware of.  Why every cook in “The Night Kitchen” is a Oliver Hardy lookalike remains one of life’s mysteries.

“That’s crazy!” she says, and I agree with her.

“Yep. Some folks read picture books to kids that they’ve just plucked out of the bath, which they’ve usually taken naked, often splashing next to siblings who are also naked.  I don’t totally get it myself why seeing another kid naked in a book, most likely right after you were naked in the bath, is any kind of big deal.  But lots of people get upset about lots of different things.”

She carefully places her bookmark in her book.  This time it was a torn piece of cloth. Other bookmarks: Kleenex tissue, scraps of paper, swizzle sticks, found wrappers.

“You know, the guy who wrote that had a man sweetie. I’m not sure if he had kids, but I know his lifetime sweetie was a man.”

“Really?”  She takes in info like this with a new depth of interest, I note.

“Yep. Though I don’t think it was that that people objected to. Most of his life most people didn’t know.  It’s just the nekkid kid that upsets folks.”

We begin to walk into the bathroom.  Her brother, ahead of us through this whole process, was now exiting the bathroom on Mama’s back, and headed to their shared bedroom for station four (pick out clothes for tomorrow).

“You know, Harry Potter’s another book some folks don’t want to have in public libraries.” I know I’m bringing out the big guns here.

“What?!! What is it about Harry POTTER?!!”  There is no overstating the degree of passion she holds in her heart for all things Potter. We haven’t even gotten past the third book (at seven, it’s a bit too scary for her, yet) and she’s only just now seen the first movie.  But she would sell all of us off to a traveling circus for just ten minutes inside of Hogwarts.

“Well. Some Christian folks feel like the book, by celebrating witches and witchcraft and magic, somehow is anti-Christian.” Admittedly, I may not have been making the most informed, persuasive case. I was doing the best I could.

“Just because you believe in magic doesn’t mean you’re against Christians,” she says. “I mean, wasn’t Jesus Christ a magician?  Kind of?”

“I think lots of people would probably think that was a very apt way to put that. Plenty of Christians even.” We hold magic in high regard in our family, and right now it stands for nearly all things ineffable, spiritually abstract, and dearly held.

By now she was squeezing just a little too much toothpaste on her toothbrush as she stood on the stool at the sink.

Some opportunities avail themselves, and when they do, we are honor-bound to take them up, and prepare our kids (even if ever-so-gently and by degrees) for the fact that some of those slings and arrows are going to hit them.  Plus hell, I’d already opened the whole Harry Potter is the antichrist door.  Why not finish off by indicting that embattled little penguin family?

“Another book some folks object to is And Tango Makes Three,” I say as casually as I can construe.  (It goes without saying that every good kid’s book that features alternative families, especially those with same-sex parents, is in our family library and familiar to, if not especially beloved by, our kids.)  Interestingly, this time there’s no surprise at all on her face. She just holds the tooth paste tube and the toothbrush in air, and looks at me with that special kind of youthful inquisitiveness that says, “I know what I believe is true. Now I want to hear what you’re going to say.”

I go on to state what is perhaps now, to her, the obvious.

“Some people don’t like it that it’s two dad penguins, and not a mom and a dad penguin.” Brief pause. Then, as if I have to defend the poor birds: “Even though it’s a true story.”

She is older than I know. Because the next statement was hers, not mine.

“I think I know why people feel like that, Baba.”

“Really, Punkin? What do you think?”

“I think the two dad penguins are different than what they know.  And they’re afraid of what they don’t know. And they react to their being afraid by being angry.”

Lord love me I swear that’s what she said. And with that, she put the toothbrush in her mouth, looked at herself in the mirror, and began to brush carefully around her wobbly front baby tooth.

I mean really? Is any commentary even needed?

This was the first Amazon review of Julianne Moore’s new kids’ book in her Freckleface Strawberry series (this one: Freckleface Strawberry: Best Friends Forever).  I learned of the book whilst reading a post at Dominique Browning’s Slow Love Life blog: “A Two-Mom Couple Confronts Noisy, Rude Questions: Julianne Moore Has Some Answers.”

So quite naturally I bopped over via the link to check out the book.  And see what greeted me? Tautological homophobia.  Self-cancelling phrase. Ignorance, ignorant of itself.

If any of y’all are registered Amazon reviewers and interested in buying and reviewing Julianne Moore’s book, I’m sure it would improve the discussion juuuuuust a bit.  I have already decided where our family’s next kid’s book purchase is going.

Today I’m reposting a list of LGBT-themed books that have been challenged or banned recently, compiled by the National Coalition Against Censorship’s Kids’ Right to Read Project.

Tomorrow, I’ll convey my home-spun taxonomy of  literature for young children which features or includes LGBT family diversity. By “literature for young children,” by the way, I mean titles intended for use in preschool and Kindergarten through third grade, for the most part, and to a lesser degree for older elementary grades.  Books for middle schoolers and high schoolers (the “young adult” or YA titles) cover similar themes way differently, and also cover whole additional themes of self-discovery. Most pointedly, they often take on bias and bigotry directly — something that younger kids may well not yet have experienced, or comprehended if they have. Many parents are careful about when and how they introduce these notions to their kids — us included.

For the rest of the week (Tuesday through Friday) I’ll highlight some of my favorite books written for and about kids with LGBT parents, including books highlighting gender diversity, something many of us consider important, whether or not any of us is T.

I sincerely hope you folks will chime in with your — or your kids’ — own favorite titles. I’ll also provide Powell’s links to all the titles I can, to speed your getting them in your home, if your public library doesn’t have the book, or you’ve checked it out and want to have it for keeps in your family library.

Herewith, LGBT Book Bans and Challenges, excerpted from the NCAC Kids’ Right to Read Project:

And Tango Makes Three
By Justin Richardson and Henry Cole (Simon and Schuster)
And Tango Makes Three is based on the true story of two male penguins raising a chick in the Central Park Zoo. According the American Library Association it was the most challenged book of 2006, 2007 and 2008. One incident at a Loudoun County, Virginia elementary school involved the book’s removal from shelves in a decision by the local superintendent. There was an immediate backlash and many called for a reconsideration. Opponents of the book claimed that it promoted a “homosexual agenda.” In another incident at a Southwick, Massachusetts elementary school, a librarian claimed she feared losing her job after introducing a class of second graders to the story. The librarian subsequently received a letter from her principal requesting that she “take [the] matter seriously and refrain from disseminating information that supports alternative styles of living,” and that, “further infractions [could] result in discipline up to and including suspension and/or termination of employment.” In a third incident, the book was ordered off bookshelves in one of North Carolina’s largest school districts in Charlotte in 2006.

Angels in America
By Tony Kushner (Broadway Play Publishing, Inc.)
Angels in America was challenged at Deerfield High School in Deerfield, Massachusetts after protests from a community member who objected to its sexual, religious and racial content, and public attacks made by a local organization that called the play ‘pornography.’ However, after a major outcry from students and other community members, including a student who wrote an op-ed (available here), it was decided that the book would still be taught in the Deerfield AP English class.

Am I Blue? Coming Out of the Silence
By Marion Diane Bauer (Tricycle Press)
Am I Blue? Coming Out of the Silence was one of 55 books that parents in Fayetteville, Arkansas petitioned to have removed from school libraries. The parents formed  Parents Protecting the Minds of Children and objected to the profane language and depictions of sexuality in the book. They also accused librarians and other opponents of their efforts of promoting a homosexual agenda. PPMC objected specifically to the book because of its gay content, as well as the fact that proceeds from the sale of the book went to Parents and Friends of Gays and Lesbians.

Annie on My Mind
By Nancy Garden (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Annie on My Mind was published first in 1982 amidst controversy because of its positive portrayal of the story’s gay protagonists. There have been several attacks on the book because it centers on two 17 year old girls exploring their sexual orientation, though there are no explicit sexual encounters in the novel. The book was also reportedly banned in some Kansas City schools.
The book was at the center of a high-profile 1995 case in which US District Court Justice Thomas Van Bebber ruled that the novel must be returned to high school libraries where it had been removed because it was educationally suitable.

Athletic Shorts
By Christopher Crutcher (HarperCollins)
Click here for the Kids’ Right to Read Project interview with Chris Crutcher.
Athletic Shorts was one of several books attacked in Vero Beach, Florida. Part-time librarian and graduate student Meagan Albright decided to focus on gay, lesbian, and transgendered themes as part of a University of South Florida course called Multicultural and Special Population Materials for Children and Young Adults and created  a display honoring LGBTQ books and authors. Subsequent protest from three visitors to the library prompted attacks on the books, as well as a town ordinance prohibiting county government from acknowledging or promoting gay pride and events. Crutcher, a child therapist who brings the gritty realities of his patients to the page, is an often-banned and -challenged author and later claimed that it was, ‘An honor to be banned.’

Baby Be Bop
By Francesca Lia Block (HarperCollins)
Click here to view Kids’ Right to Read Project interview with Francesca Lia Block.
Baby Be Bop was one of 55 books that parents in Fayetteville, Arkansas petitioned to have removed from school libraries. The parents formed Parents Protecting the Minds of Children and objected to the profane language and depictions of sexuality in the book. They also accused librarians and other opponents of their efforts of promoting a homosexual agenda. PPMC objected specifically to Baby Be Bop because of its written style, saying ‘There are just plain too many teenager-aimed books nowadays that have this sort of choppy, half-conscious, half-delirious, not quite stream of consciousness style of writing.”
Baby Be Bop is also on a list of titles that a local group in West Bend, Wisconsin called West Bend Citizens for Safe Librariesobjects to seeing in the local public library. In February, the group requested that the library board remove a page of recommended titles about LGBTQ issues for young people (including Baby Be Bop). They also demanded that the books be moved from the youth section of the library and placed with the adult collection, “to protect children from accessing them without their parents’ knowledge and supervision.” The Christian Civil Liberities Union – Milwaukee branch filed legal suit against the city of West Bend claiming its elderly plantiffs were damaged mentally and emotionally by the book’s presence at the local public library. The claim seeks financial damages and the right to publically burn the library’s copy of Baby Be Bop.

Between Lovers
By Eric Jerome Dickey (Penguin)
Between Lovers was one of 55 books that parents in Fayetteville, Arkansas petitioned to have removed from school libraries. The parents formed Parents Protecting the Minds of Children and objected to the profane language and depictions of sexuality in the book. They also accused librarians and other opponents of their efforts of promoting a homosexual agenda. PPMC objects to this novel because of its depictions of infidelity.

The Bermudez Triangle
By Maureen Johnson (Penguin)
On March 4th, 2007, in Oklahoma, a book challenge against The Bermudez Triangle was submitted to the school board of Bartlesville Public Schools in Oklahoma. Someone felt that a book had “no moral fiber” and asked for it to be removed “at once.” The book chronicles the relationship between 3 female best friends and the trouble they run in to when 2 start to secretly date. The Bermudez Triangle was also  challenged in the local Leesburg Public Library. Click here for the Kids’ Right to Read Project interview with Maureen Johnson.

Cheaters
By Eric Jerome Dickey (Dutton)
Cheaters was one of 55 books that parents in Fayetteville, Arkansas petitioned to have removed from school libraries. The parents formed Parents Protecting the Minds of Children and objected to the profane language and depictions of sexuality in the book. They also accused librarians and other opponents of their efforts of promoting a homosexual agenda. PPMC objected to this novel specifically because of its depictions of sex, particularly homosexual sex.

Coming Out in College: The Struggle for a Queer Identity
By Robert A. Rhoades (Bergin & Garvey)
Coming Out in College: The Struggle for a Queer Identity was one of 55 books that parents in Fayetteville, Arkansas petitioned to have removed from school libraries. The parents formed Parents Protecting the Minds of Children and objected to the profane language and depictions of sexuality in the book. They also accused librarians and other opponents of their efforts of promoting a homosexual agenda. PPMC objects to this book because it promotes gay pride and a rejection of heterosexism.

Daddy’s Roommate
By Michael Willhoite (Alyson Publications)
Daddy’s Roommate was on of several books that was challenged during the period of Sarah Palin’s inquiries into school libraries in the  Wasilla region of Alaska. Palin complained that Daddy’s Roommate– a book that helps children understand homosexuality–did not belong in the Wasilla Public Library. When Laura Chase, Palin’s first mayoral campaign manager, asked if she had read the book, the mayor responded, “she didn’t need to read that stuff.” Chase told the New York Times that she found it ‘disturbing that someone would be willing to remove a book from the library and she didn’t even read it.’ The book has been banned in other circumstances for being age inappropriate and ‘promoting homosexuality.’

Dance on My Grave
By Alan Chambers (Doubleday)
Library Patrons of Texas, a conservative community group, attacked Dance on My Grave and 15 other LGBTQ or sex-themed books in the  Montgomery, Texas library. Ultimately, none of the books were removed or restricted. The book tells the story of a 14 year old gay boy and his first gay relationships.

Doing It
By Melvin Burgess (Holt Henry & Co.)
Doing It was one of 55 books that parents in Fayetteville, Arkansas petitioned to have removed from school libraries. The parents formed Parents Protecting the Minds of Children and objected to the profane language and depictions of sexuality in the book. They also accused librarians and other opponents of their efforts of promoting a homosexual agenda. PPMC specifically objected to the novel because of its depictions of casual sex.

The Drowning of Stephan Jones
By Bette Greene (Laurel Leaf)
The Drowning of Stephan Jones was one of 4 books that drew complaints from a parent based on their LGBTQ content. The parent formally complained to Barron High School and despite recommendations from a specially convened committee, the District Administrator decided to ban two of the books immediately.  At its September 21, 1998 meeting the Board banned The Drowning of Stephan Jones indefinitely.

The Education of Harriet Hatfield
By May Sarton (WW Norton & Co)
The Education of Harriet Hatfield was  removed from Mascenic Regional High School classrooms in New Ipswich, New Hampshire because of its lesbian protagonist. An English teacher was subsequently fired for refusing to remove the book. The book tells the story of a woman who opens a bookstore for women in a blue-collar neighborhood in Boston where she is viciously attacked for being a lesbian.

Eight Seconds
By Jean Ferris (Harcourt)
Eight Seconds is a story about how two high school friends realize that they are gay after a summer rodeo school. The characters are totally aware of the social challenges that they face but are determined to live with tolerance and compassion. Library Patrons of Texas was  critical of the book’s depiction of homosexuality, objecting to passages like “Poor little yellow-assed cowbaby, can’t even fight your own battles. Need a pretty boyfriend to watch out for you.” The group tried to have the book removed from Montgomery libraries.

Family Values
By Phyllis Burke (Vintage)
Family Values was one of 55 books that parents in Fayetteville, Arkansas petitioned to have removed from school libraries. The parents formed Parents Protecting the Minds of Children and objected to the profane language and depictions of sexuality in the book. They also accused librarians and other opponents of their efforts of promoting a homosexual agenda. PPMC specifically objected to the book’s discussion of gay parents.

Gays/Justice: A Study of Ethics, Society and Law
By Richard D. Mohr (Colombia University Press)
Gays/Justice was one of 55 books that parents in Fayetteville, Arkansas petitioned to have removed from school libraries. The parents formed Parents Protecting the Minds of Children and objected to the profane language and depictions of sexuality in the book. They also accused librarians and other opponents of their efforts of promoting a homosexual agenda. PPMC objects to this book because it endorses stronger civil rights for gay people and opposes organized religion.

Geography Club
By Brent Hartinger (HarperCollins)
Geography Club has recently become one of the most banned and challenged books in the United States. It was banned in the author’s hometown of  Tacoma, Washington. More recently, the book has come under fire in  West Bend, Wisconsin, where community members object to its presence in the local library because of its ‘immoral’ gay content. Click  here for the Kids’ Right to Read Project interview with Brent Hartinger.

GLBTQ: The Survival Guide for Queer and Questioning Teens
By Kelly Huegel (Free Spirit)
GLBTQ: The Survival Guide for Queer and Questioning Teens was one of 55 books that parents in Fayetteville, Arkansas petitioned to have removed from school libraries. The parents formed Parents Protecting the Minds of Children and objected to the profane language and depictions of sexuality in the book. They also accused librarians and other opponents of their efforts of promoting a homosexual agenda. PPMC specifically objected to this book because it discusses transgender teens and provides online resources about being gay.

Good Moon Rising
By Nancy Garden (Farrar Straus & Giroux)
Library Patrons of Texas targeted author Nancy Garden’s books, including Good Moon Rising. The book is considered objectionable by the group because it presents  homosexuality in a non-judgmental context.

Growing Up Gay in America
By Jason R. Rich (Franklin Street Books)
Local residents reported that there had been several challenges to books in the St. Louis Public library, including Growing Up Gay in America, by a community member who deemed the book and others to be ‘obscene’ and spoke against the books at a city council meeting.

Hey Dollface
By Deborah Hautzig (Bantam)
Library Patrons of Texas attempted to remove this book from  Montgomery libraries because it tells the story of two girls’ friendship and blossoming sexuality. The book was reviewed along with several other titles, none of which were ultimately removed.

Holly’s Secret
By Nancy Garden (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Holly’s Secret was one of a few of Nancy Garden’s books to be challenged by the Library Patrons of Texas after the author became a target for the group. The book was  considered objectionable because it presented homosexuality in a non-judgmental context and included phrases like ‘so what’s the big deal…who cares if your parents are both women’ and ‘I don’t care about your moms. At least you’ve got two parents. I wish I did.’

The Homo Handbook: Getting in Touch with Your Inner Homo
By Judy Carter (Simon & Schuster)
The Homo Handbook was one of 55 books that parents in Fayetteville, Arkansas petitioned to have removed from school libraries. The parents formed Parents Protecting the Minds of Children and objected to the profane language and depictions of sexuality in the book. They also accused librarians and other opponents of their efforts of promoting a homosexual agenda. PPMC specifically objected to the book because of its exploration of being gay and coming out of the closet.

Homosexuality: What Does it Mean?
By Julie K. Endersbe (Capstone)
Homosexuality: What Does it Mean? was one of several books contested in the St. Louis Public Library system because of objections to content. Community members who opposed the books tried to have the books put at restricted access. Click  here to read Kids’ Right to Read Project letter opposing this challenge.

Iron Man
By Chris Crutcher (HarperCollins)
Iron Man was attacked in Vero Beach, Florida. Part-time librarian and graduate student Meagan Albright decided to focus on gay, lesbian, and transgendered themes as part of a University of South Florida course called Multicultural and Special Population Materials for Children and Young Adults and  created a display honoring LGBTQ books and authors. Subsequent protest from three visitors to the library prompted attacks on the books, as well as a town ordinance prohibiting county government from acknowledging or promoting gay pride and events. The story includes an unexpected queer plot twist. Crutcher, a child therapist who brings the gritty realities of his patients to the page, is an often-banned and challenged author and later claimed that it was “An honor to be banned.”

It’s Perfectly Normal
Robie H. Harris (Random House)
It’s Perfectly Normal was  restricted but later returned to general circulation in Holt Middle School library in Fayetteville, Arkansas due to complaints that it was sexually explicit, moved from the young adult to the adult section in Ford Bend County Library in Richmond, Texas, challenged but retained in the Montgomery County, Texas library system after the Republican Leadership Council characterized the book as “vulgar” and trying to “minimize or even negate that homosexuality is a problem,” challenged in a Holland, Massachusetts public library and challenged in a Marion County, Florida public library for sexually explicit content. It’s Perfectly Normal is a sex education book.

King and King
By Linda de Haan and Stern Nijland (Tricycle Press)
In 2004, King and King ignited controversy after first-grader Olivia Hartsell brought the book home on March 1 and her parents Michael and Tonya Hartsell  complained to administrators at Rachel Freeman Elementary School in Wilmington, North Carolina. The Hartsells objected to the book’s acknowledgement of homosexuality and also of divorce (“When I was your age, I’d been married twice already,” the prince’s mother tells him, in encouraging him to find a mate). The Hartsells threatened to enroll their daughter in a different school and refused to return the book to the Freeman school library, for fear some other child might check it out. It was also challenged in a public library in  Lower Macungie, Pennsylvania in 2007 by parents Eileen and Jeff Issa who requested the book’s removal due to its homosexual content. Their request was denied, prompting the Issas to appeal to the township supervisors who upheld the library’s decision in a 2-1 vote.

The Last of the Wine
By Mary Renault (Random House)
The Last of the Wine was attacked by a campaign accusing it of “encouraging a homosexual lifestyle.”  Objecting community members in Charlotte County, Florida and their supporters revile the book, which was used in an honors history class, but they also attempted to humiliate the teacher by calling him a “sexual predator” and accusing him of trying to “recruit” children to homosexuality. The school board supported the teacher and the novel.

Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin
By John D’Emilio (University of Chicago Press)
In May 2005, the Oklahoma House of Representatives passed a resolution calling on public libraries to remove children’s books with references to gay characters or families. In response, gay and lesbian civil rights groups in Oklahoma donated copies of Lost Prophet: The Life of Bayard Rustin and Stonewall: The Riot that Sparked the Gay Revolution to local high schools. The donation was  met with conservative outcry but the Oklahoma City school board voted to permit the donation.

Making Sexual Decisions: The Ultimate Teen Guide
By L. Kris Gowen (Scarecrow Press)
A community member challenged Making Sexual Decisions: The Ultimate Teen Guide along with several other sex education books at the Daniel Boone branch of the St. Louis public library. The individual called the books ‘obscene’ and spoke against them at a city council meeting.

Maurice and The Education of Harriet Hatfield
By E. M. Forster (Penguin)
Maurice was among several books removed from a regional high school. The novels’ purchase was financed by a grant that teacher Penny Culliton received and was approved by the school superintendent and principal. However, shortly after a local newspaper reported that Culliton was involved with a lesbian and gay support group for young people, the books were found unsuitable and were banned. Maurice and The Education of Harriet Hatfield were seized from the students while they were reading the novels in class. Personal attacks on the teacher and demands for her dismissal were so vehement that her job was jeopardized.

My Father’s Scar
By Michael Cart (MacMillan)
Library Patrons of Texas, a conservative community group, attacked My Father’s Scar and 15 other gay or sexually-themed books in the Montgomery, Texas library. None of the books were removed or restricted. The book tells the story of a college student’s first gay relationship and his struggle with an alcoholic father and a prejudiced community. My Father’s Scar was also one of 55 books that parents in Fayetteville, Arkansas petitioned to have removed from school libraries. The parents formed Parents Protecting the Minds of Children and objected to the profane language and depictions of sexuality in the book. They also accused librarians and other opponents of their efforts of promoting a homosexual agenda. PPMC specifically objected to My Father’s Scarbecause of its depictions of homosexuality and sexual abuse.

My Heartbeat
By Garret Freymann-Weyr (Puffin)
My Heartbeat was attacked by Library Patrons of Texas who tried to have the book removed from their local libraries. The book is the story of a Manhattan teenager’s struggle with her sexual awakening and includes characters’ questioning sexuality and a queer secondary character.

The New Joy of Gay Sex
By Charles Silverstein
The New Joy of Gay Sex met various challenges including its being challenged at a Clifton, New Jersey library where the board voted to limit access to the book, keeping it hidden behind the circulation desk and requiring that patrons ask for it specifically by name. Additionally, a York Township woman in Medina County, Ohio quit her job as a librarian in protest over children being able to check out adult-oriented materials like The New Joy of Gay Sex. The library took no action maintaining that its policy was a parental responsibility to monitor which books children checked out.

Peter
By Kate Walker (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Peter is the story of Peter and David, two Australian teens who begin to explore their sexual identities. Library Patrons of Texas, a conservative community group,  fought for the removal of the book from local libraries. “Not every troubled adolescent will have the good fortune of meeting a friend like David, but, with luck, many of them will find self-understanding and self-respect through reading wise and compassionate novels like this one,” said the School Library Journal.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower
By Stephen Chbosky (Simon & Schuster)
The Perks of Being a Wallflower was one of 55 books that parents in Fayetteville, Arkansas petitioned to have removed from school libraries. The parents formed Parents Protecting the Minds of Children and objected to the profane language and depictions of sexuality in the book. They also accused librarians and other opponents of their efforts of promoting a homosexual agenda. PPMC objects to this book because of its depictions of gay sex.

Postcards from Noman’s Land
By Aiden Chambers (Dutton Books)
Postcards from Noman’s Land was attacked in Vero Beach, Florida. Part-time librarian and graduate student Meagan Albright decided to focus on gay, lesbian, and transgendered themes as part of a University of South Florida course called Multicultural and Special Population Materials for Children and Young Adults and created a display honoring LGBTQ books and authors. Subsequent protest from three visitors to the library  prompted attacks on the books, as well as a town ordinance prohibiting county government from acknowledging or promoting gay pride and events. The story includes a character struggling with sexual identity.

Rainbow High and Rainbow Boys
By Alex Sanchez (Simon & Schuster)
Rainbow Boys was challenged by local community members at the Owen-Withee Junior and Senior High School in Wisconsin who described the book as pervasively vulgar and decried the book’s gay content. After a school board review, the book remained in the schools. Both Rainbow Boys and Rainbow High were on the list of 55 books that parents in Fayetteville, Arkansas petitioned to have removed from school libraries. The parents formed Parents Protecting the Minds of Children and objected to the profane language and depictions of sexuality in the book. They also accused librarians and other opponents of their efforts of promoting a homosexual agenda. PPMC specifically objects to these novels because of their depictions of gay teens and the use of profane language. Both novels have gay, male, teen protagonists and multiple queer characters.

Stonewall: The Riots that Sparked the Gay Revolution
By David Carter (St. Martin’s Press)
In May 2005, the Oklahoma House of Representatives passed a resolution calling on public libraries to remove children’s books with references to gay characters or families. In response, gay and lesbian civil rights groups in Oklahoma donated copies of Stonewall: The Riot that Sparked the Gay Revolution to local high schools. The donation was met with conservative outcry but the Oklahoma City school board voted to permit the donation.

Stuck Rubber Baby
By Howard Cruse (DC Comics)
Stuck Rubber Baby is a graphic novel about a young man coming to terms with his homosexuality in the Civil Rights era American south. Themes include homophobia, racism and gay identity. The novel was attacked by the Library Patrons of Texas, who objected to its inclusion in local libraries. They forced the reclassification of the book from Young Adult to Adult, but the book was not removed.

The Trouble With Babies
By Martha Freeman (Holiday House)
The Trouble With Babies was removed from the shelves of several public libraries because of a brief mention of an adopted child’s gay fathers. In one incident, a Pittsburgh-area mother demanded the book be removed from a public library because of its “homosexual agenda.” Her protests ultimately succeeded. When he was  asked to reissue the book without the homosexual references, author Freeman said, “I should be able to write what I want, without fear of censorship. That’s my version of America, for me and other writers.”

In addition to compiling this list, the National Coalition Against Censorship also has a LGBTQ Right to Read  Links page.

Addendum: Check out Dana’s welcome to Banned Books Week over at Mombian here, and keep going back to visit throughout the week, since she’ll continue the topical posts as well.

This Thursday evening I’ll be talking to our former (and future!) preschool director’s Children’s Literature class.  It’s offered for early childhood educators who are in the process of getting their credentials, and I was honored (up the wazoo) to have been asked by her to talk to them last year, too.  All must have went well enough, since she asked me a second time.

The talk was about family diversity — specifically LGBT family diversity — in literature for children. I did some amateur sleuthing, some book list compiling (so many sources!), some talking to librarians and some checking out from both the public library and our family’s library. Handouts with lengthy book lists were procured (when I update the compilation for this week’s presentation, I’ll include a post here at LD, ideally incorporating the list into a more comprehensive LD link page). The outline of the talk went  like this:

1. Intro of who I am (parent, educator, LGBT activist, but not a kid’s lit specialist by any means)

2. Some useful bits of info about “alternative” families in general (more of us than the “nuclear norm” since 2000 census; e.g. these kinds of stats) & LGBT families in particular (#s in state & county; other details about who we are, based on the 2007 study conducted by Our Family Coalition et al.)

3. Some reasons why it’s a good idea to introduce family diversity in early childhood curriculum (including the challenges people face when doing so, with local and national examples of school district battles and the “challenged” LGBT-friendly kids’ books at libraries)

4. Some suggestions about how to approach the topic

5. Some examples of some of the literature, which I sort thusly in this rough fashion and note are weighted toward the two-gal-headed families more than two-guy-headed, since that’s what I know (I hasten to add that the book lists are comprehensive & I check out and distribute titles like Daddy, Papa and Me, Daddy’s Wedding, and One Dad, Two Dads, Brown Dads Blue Dads):

Early generation LGBT books: kinda head-on or “frontal,” presuming a hostile or ignorant readership and functioning to directly explain what in the Sam Hill we are:

• • Molly’s Family, by Nancy Garden
  • Heather Has Two Mommies, by Leslea Newman (the grandmama of LGBT kid’s lit books)

Books which place LGBT family diversity in context of other types of family diversity:

• • The Family Book, by Todd Parr
  • Who’s in a Family, by Robert Skutch

Books  which take LGBT family diversity as a given and ostensibly focus on something else entirely

• • ABC A Family Alphabet Book, by Bobbie Combs (topic: the alphabet)
  • Emma and Meesha My Boy, by Kaitlyn Taylor Considine (topic: how to treat a cat decently)

Books which address gender identity among younger people (as vs. “alternative” family structure), a strong/related concern for many LGBT families

• • The Sissy Duckling, by Harvey Fierstein
  • 10,000 Dresses, by Marcus Ewert

Books which address difference in other arenas than family structure and can be used in addtion &/or via analogy [ed note: oops! forgot to include this when I posted]

• • It’s Okay to Be Different, by Todd Parr
  • I Like Myself!, by Karen Beaumont

My questions to you, hive mind of LD readers, are the following:

1. How would you suggest this outline be improved upon or added to?
2. What books would you want to be sure to have highlighted, and why?
3. Anything else you think would be important for early childhood educators to know or think about, regarding LGBT family diversity in kid’s lit?

Or just share your thoughts. If you’re not registered for the commenting and want to, let me know via the LD Contact page. Or just email me something directly that-a-way.

Thanks!

For all the time I spend caring for the little munchkins, it’s been rare that she and I have gone on a special Baba-daughter outing. Her craving for Mama is great, and perhaps would be so regardless of the fact that Mama works outside the house more hours than Baba does. So the arrangements we usually make for solo time with the kids tend to accommodate the lil’ monkey’s ever-unslaked Mama-thirst. This time around, though, the LGBT family-friendly performance was smack dab in the middle of Mama’s prime-time work hours. Grampy gladly watched the boy, and my girlie and I skipped footloose into the city to see what kind of fun we might have together.

Before we even make it the few blocks to the subway, I can tell by her mood that she is loving this every bit as much as I was. Singing, prancing, the outsize imagination vibrating and sizzling and shooting off in all directions. Since the beloved’s production of Fiddler is fading slowly into memory, I am less frequently conscripted into the role of Tevye (to her Tzeitel). The next theater production, Les Miserables, is months away, and the seasonal fave Amahl and the Night Visitors hasn’t yet encroached, so what’s filling the lil’ monkey’s mind has been the characters in our current reading: L. Frank Baum’s Oz series. We plowed through The Wonderful Wizard of, just polished off The Land of and are launching into the third, Ozma of, with reckless abandon (bringing her chapter book total — Alice and Pipi and Mary Poppins are also in her wake — way above that of the number of books Baba has read this year). Today, I am the Tin Woodman.

The farther from home we get, the more I feel us assuming the mantle of exemplar: for better or worse, a public slice of queer family. The folks who just lost big in the recent election. I wonder, over the course of our commute, whether the love we casually radiate to one another does anything thematically specific for those around us. I wonder whether it makes those who voted for us feel a pride in their role in our state’s checkered social history, even if bittersweet. Those who voted against us are, at base, an enigma to me. I don’t really recognize them, when I see them. But I assume they recognize us. What with me being all butchly and all.

I wonder, when they get a chance to see, in person, part of a family whose rights were just rescinded: do they feel a catch of regret? I simply don’t know how to understand those who don’t – though I know many don’t: many look at me with my child and feel disgust, or concern, or pity; if they were to know she was born to my partner and not to me, I know many would think me an interloper. Nearly four people out of any given ten that I might see in my county thought some variation on this theme, and voted so.

In the train station, I wonder if they see how effortlessly I hoist my daughter into my arms for the escalator ride. How, as we perch ourselves at the base of the escalator to watch the people descend, or as we settle into our seat on the train ride into the city, how comfortably she drapes herself in my lap. How she picks up my hand and plays with the fingers, or pulls my baseball hat off and rubs her hand on my hair.

Before the vote, such moments felt more freighted. They felt – to me, at least – as if they were all impromptu lobbying moments. Actual people whose legal recognitions and protections were on the line. A pair of faces to help the undecided people make the abstractions real. That woman, there; that child. It is their bond I’m respecting, and protecting. Or not.

Once we’ve ascended the escalator at our downtown station, we break into a trot for the theater. And since it is an egghead four-year old I’m trotting with, until the final block, “we” is actually me holding the girlie up in my arms.

We made it in time for the curtain, and the show was a delight. Bunnies and animated toys and fairies and the like. George Ballanchine meets Twyla Tharp. No scary villains. No commercial tie-ins.

On the way back from the show, I tuck us into the Palace Hotel for a peek at its spectacular glass-domed atrium and the umpteen-foot-tall Christmas tree soaring up in it. The lil’ monkey is goggle-eyed at it all, the ornate marble pillars, the gold gilt detailing.

“I could make myself a hundred keys with all this gold,” she says, “and open doors all over the world.”

The BART ride home is a little more crowded than I’d expect it to be for a Saturday afternoon. Holiday shoppers, I suspect. A woman takes the seat next to us, the girlie having elected to sit on my lap, as she had before. It’s impossible not to notice the sweet smile on the woman as she watches my daughter.

I look up and smile at her, and she says, “She looks exactly like my own daughter. Thirty years ago.”

We drop down and enter the tunnel under the Bay, and the girlie’s ears begin to hurt from the slight increse in air pressure. I suggest to her that we pretend to chew and swallow something, to help.

“Gingerbread!” she says, and commences to hold up an imaginary gingerbread person, offering me a bite. We sit and chew and swallow a bit, and at the next juncture when the woman is looking and smiling again, I offer her some of the imaginary gingerbread. She immediately takes it, breaks off little bits, and stuffs them into her ears. The lil’ monkey is delighted.

We begin to talk. She’s in the Bay Area visiting her daughter, who lives in Berkeley and works at an environmental organization. She has lived in a small town in Tuolomne County in the Sierras for the past thirty years, and comes down on the train to visit her daughter. I think about the No on 8 button that’s still on my jacket on the lapel facing her. Her county and mine were mirror opposites of one another on this vote: mine went 38% Yes, 62% No. Hers: 62% Yes, 38% No.

Being in the city is a little unsettling, she says, and especially on such a crowded train. She’s a little worried she won’t know what stop to get off at, and I notice the subway map is obscured by now. Standing room only passengers hang onto the handrail along the roof of the car, swaying from side to side. I describe for her the remainder of her route, that it will end above ground, and the Amtrak transfer is just at the end of the line. By then the car will be vastly thinned. She visibly relaxes.

The lil’ monkey frequently threads herself in and out of my conversation with the woman, who seems to be becoming more charmed by the mile. I tell her my name, and the girlie’s.

“It’s my mother’s maiden name,” I say. “She was the only grandparent in heaven when our daughter was born, so now I get to call my mother’s name whenever I call out for her.”

The woman says the same of her neice. “She has my mother’s name as her middle name.” She says the whole name out, first, middle, last. “My mother died four months ago and I still can’t talk about it.”

I tell her that family members who are no longer here are a big part of my daughter’s life. I withhold reference to my nephew. A half hour’s train ride with a stranger is long enough to talk about my mother, but not nearly long enough even for a reference to a ten year old child lost to brain cancer. There is no passing reference to such a thing, no conversation it does not weight down and absorb.

“I tell my daughter, every time she’s awake late enough to see the stars come out, that the first star we see every night is my mother’s spirit. I tell her how all the stars in the heavens represent all the people no longer on earth, but looking out for ones they love still here. Like the stars, they’re there all the time. But only when we pay careful attention, when enough of everything else is quiet around us, do we see them.”

Again I’m interrupted by the lil’ monkey, and as I attend to her, the woman discreetly wipes at the corner of her eyes. I realize that I didn’t tell her I was sorry for her loss; I realized that I assumed, by her age, that the loss of her mother would take on a more muted kind of sadness. I don’t know it yet – the death of a parent due to old age – but I’m guessing it is different than accidental death, or death from illness or (heaven forbid) violence. I was younger than this woman’s daughter is now when my own mother died. Still, I now wish I had acknowledged it.

The girlie has slithered down to the spot at my feet, impossibly cramped, yet totally engaged in play with the little rabbit we got at the show. I make some disparaging remark about the schmutz on the floor in front of us, and feebly hope no one has affixed gum where her cheek is grazing. Or worse. Not that I can plausibly imagine worse stuff, but I do. Oh, you know, stray razor blades, porn. What have you.

I say, “Someone once told me, and I wholeheartedly believe it now, that you never really have to trust the world around you the way you do when you have children. There’s just so much you can’t control, you know? I can only hope there’s more goodness out there than badness.”

Without missing a beat, and without a trace of doubt, she says, “I think there’s more goodness.”

The train pulls into our station, and I begin to gather up the lil’ monkey and our stuff.

“Have a nice rest of your trip,” I say. I invite the girlie to say goodbye to the nice lady, which, predictably, she does not (by this point her brother would have a fully extended arm, with the scrunchy hand at the end of it, floating out “Goodbye” in his impossibly sweet falsetto). The girlie does wave, though, which is something. I smile at the woman and shrug the shrug of the parent-of-this-kind-of-a-four-year-old. The woman returns the smile, with sympathy. Maybe the resemblance to her daughter goes beyond appearance.

“Happy holidays!” I add, as we make our way to the door. “You, too,” she says. And regardless of how she voted and why, I know she means it.

[next in this marraige equality series: Some/thing old]

You know times are tough when, at your daughter’s fourth birthday party, you and three other parents find yourselves in the middle of the lawn, ignoring the flying Nerf balls and the children’s gay laughter, talking about your incipient ulcers and how you are all trying not to consult the latest polling numbers on the presidential campaign more than twice or three times a day.  My Know-It-All-Brother-In-Law had comforted one of them, earlier, with his combo-dealie argument about Michigan and Pennsylvania and Obama’s kick-@ss “ground game,” whose benefits won’t be visible until the latter hours of November 4.  Yow! Like my stomach can last that long!

But as a sister-in-law (soon to be out-law again?  another ulcer-stoker!  more on Proposition 8 later in the week!), I take his prognostications with a grain of salt.  Even though they are based on decades of involvement in and observation of electoral politics, and even though he could get pretty far on a Jeopardy show dedicated to the finer shadings of electoral vs. popular vote calculations, and trends, and so on.  I mean, his spouse has been a fundraiser for Democratic women candidates since before she was his spouse.  So he does kind of have an inside track on this.

Still!  We have all watched war-mongering dingbats become elected to high office in this country before.  And apparently, when the spit hits the fan, I find I’m a pessimist in optimist’s clothing.  So I am stocking up on Zantac and trying hard to reduce the frequency with which I check & re-check the latest polling numbers.

Meanwhile, I want to pass on some  ”mainstream” online news bits (with hat tips to Pam’s House Blend and Box Turtle Bulletin).  Each adds some more specificity to the accusations that then-Mayor Palin attempted to censor books from her town’s library.  Specifically, two books sympathetic to gay people (Daddy’s Roommate and Pastor, I am Gay ).   Per usual, the LD caveat pertains here: I don’t expect this to be news to you, gentle reader.  But if you know any independent, undecided librarian types, do pass this on to them.

Saturday’s New York Times ran a lengthy piece — “Once Elected, Palin Hired Friends and Lashed Foes,” — on Palin’s leadership style, which many are comparing to that of Bush (cock-sure; intolerant of dissent; strongly influenced by fundamentalists; etc.).

“People would bring books back censored,” recalled former Mayor John Stein, Ms. Palin’s predecessor. “Pages would get marked up or torn out.”

Witnesses and contemporary news accounts say Ms. Palin asked the librarian about removing books from the shelves. The McCain-Palin presidential campaign says Ms. Palin never advocated censorship.

But in 1995, Ms. Palin, then a city councilwoman, told colleagues that she had noticed the book “Daddy’s Roommate” on the shelves and that it did not belong there, according to Ms. Chase and Mr. Stein. Ms. Chase read the book, which helps children understand homosexuality, and said it was inoffensive; she suggested that Ms. Palin read it.

“Sarah said she didn’t need to read that stuff,” Ms. Chase said. “It was disturbing that someone would be willing to remove a book from the library and she didn’t even read it.”

“I’m still proud of Sarah,” she added, “but she scares the bejeebers out of me.”

Posted on Salon.com today is “The pastor who clashed with Palin,” a piece (by Salon founder David Talbot) on Baptist minister Howard Bess, a retiree to Matanuska-Susitna Borough (or county), in which Palin’s hometown of Wasilla sits.  Bess is the author of Pastor, I am Gay:

The book was the result of a theological journey that began in the 1970s when Bess was asked for guidance by a closeted homosexual in his Santa Barbara congregation. After deep reflection on the subject, Bess came to the conclusion that “gay people were not sick, nor they were special sinners.”

According to the Salon piece, the book’s publication stirred up a controversy among area evangelical churches; Bess was fired from a local paper for which he had written for seven years; the only bookstore in the valley that dared to stock it pulled it from the shelves after a barrage of angry phone calls.  Given this, it’s less of a stretch to believe what is alleged to have happened under Mayor Palin.  Bess reports to Talbot that he has direct knowledge, from city staffers, that his book was targeted (“This is a small town, we all know each other. People in city government have confirmed to me what Sarah was trying to do.”)  Most chilling to me, though, after the details on the book stuff, was this:

Bess is unnerved by the prospect of Palin — a woman whose mind is given to dogmatic certitude — standing one step away from the Oval Office. “It’s truly frightening that someone like Sarah has risen to the national level,” Bess said. “Like all religious fundamentalists — Christian, Jewish, Muslim — she is a dualist. They view life as an ongoing struggle to the finish between good and evil. Their mind-set is that you do not do business with evil — you destroy it. Talking with the enemy is not part of their plan. That puts someone like Obama on the side of evil.

“Forget all this chatter about whether or not she knows what the Bush doctrine is. That’s trivial. The real disturbing thing about Sarah is her mind-set. It’s her underlying belief system that will influence how she responds in an international crisis, if she’s ever in that position, and has the full might of the U.S. military in her hands. 

(I’d say I was snatching time to watch the Democratic National Convention on CNN, but remember? No live TV! So I’ll have to catch Michelle Obama’s speech on YouTube.) [Later note: who needs YouTube? How 'bout team Obama?]

Fortunately for me, one promising development has been that the girlchild has taken to offering up renditions of her favorite “Beatrix Pottery” volumes to the boychild.  Bless his soul, he’s taking a shine to it.

Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin begins, “This is a tale about a tail — a tail that belonged to a little red squirrel, and his name was Nutkin.” Nutkin basically demonstrates himself to be a royal pain in the arse of Old Brown, a dour owl on whose island Nutkin and his numerous cousins are gathering nuts. Without giving away the whole plot, I’ll just say that Nutkin eventually gets his comeuppance, narrowly averting becoming a handbag, or more to the point, Old Brown’s appetizer. [Spoiler alert! He loses the better part of his tail as he makes his escape -- thus "the tale about a tail."]

Of course I use the term “renditions” for a reason. The lil’ monkey isn’t reading in the conventional sense, but rather free-associating the plot-line, based on a combination of her memory and a fairly creative interpretation of the illustrations.

>

 I can’t recall what she did with the above illustration. Maybe, “When Squirrel Nutkin ignores his Baba, his Baba sets the nasty owl on him to threaten to break his little squirrel knees.”

Oh, every now and then, she loses her audience.

Baba’s pretty used to that too. Looks like she’s taking it pretty well. What’s most important is that she’s having a lasting impact, as a role model.

And that’s just the beginning of the story.

Begs the question, doesn’t it. SINCE I NEVER WANTED TO BE A PRINCESS AT ALL. Now a Prince, we can talk.

You’ll never guess which one of the above pictured items was checked out of the library when the lil’ monkey was there with Other People Who Shall Remain Nameless*, and which one was purchased in a compensatory fit by Baba. So Xena wields a weapon, and people are shrieking and running for cover on every other page. And she’s wearing an outfit that is best suited for the Folsom Street Fair. Least she has sensible shoes boots on.

Oh, these are bleak days around Casa LD.

‘Scuse me while I go scream into a pillow.

*In the interest of full disclosure, I will note that the adult among the Other People Who Shall Remain Nameless did at least apologize for what got dragged home from the library. With a sweet sympathetic look. As if to say, “Good luck keeping these horses in the barn.”

[Ed note: the following dada narrative was dictated by the lil' monkey to the beloved, who faithfully recorded it verbatim. Wee book making, with dictated narration to accompany illustrations, has become a favorite pastime. So far, the booklets -- note pad-sized pages, stapled together -- have been in dialog with some story we've read that's been filling her head. Her take on Polly the Party Fun Fairy came first, and gets featured later, when I'm able to give the whole fairy topic its due.

Today, we feature her take on the world's first LGBT-family-friendly kid's show, Dottie's Magic Pockets! Peep clips of the show on their YouTube Dottie Extravaganza here! (If you look carefully on their YouTube page, you'll see Up Popped a Fox' adorable singing kid!)

We ran out of Julie Andrews musicals to show the kid, and finally succombed to the multiple raves and plugs on Mombian (and when has Sister Dana steered us wrong?). We ordered us up some LGBT family fun, and regret not a penny of it! Readers familiar with Dottie's Magic Pockets will find a sketchy resemblance to their beloved show in the narrative below. The rest of you, rush out hop online and get yours today, and find out what the show is really about.]

Dottie and the Sun

Once upon a time, there was a woman named Dottie. Dottie lived with her son named Ollie. Then she had an idea. She would get her gift out of the bag right in the second that her son was at school.

When her son was back he would see all sorts of glitter all over the room. Then he would say, “What a mess!”

When Randall stepped out of the corner of his muddy house, then Dottie surprisingly stepped out of it. Then she opened the curtains and saw the sun. Then she saw that James, the can Uncanny, and Matilda, down in her little mouse house, had been resourced. I mean she drew on the walls of her little mouse house with little mouse markers.

[Ed note: Aha! So that's what it's called! Now I know to look up from the keyboard when I hear, "Baba, I just 'resourced' our walls! Don't they look pretty?"]

James, in the corner sipping his tea, looking through the window, having more of his breakfast with it.

Her son named Ollie and Wally (the two hands with gloves on it) the red guitar with peacock feathers — they are the design on the guitar. Ollie came home from school.

The glitter was all over the floor. Soon, Ollie said, “What?” And he collected it all up.

Then, Dottie made a lot of candy and put it in a basket, then put it all over the floor. And Ollie is eating it all because he ate all of his breakfast.

[Ed note: This is a notable departure from the show, which does not feature candy of any sort, at least in the first two episodes. I do see traces of Polly the Party Fun Fairy, though, which ends on a cravenly kid-pandering note: mass distribution of candies to a bunch of girls on a camping expedition. Really. The kid lit equivalent of the slow-mo hotties running on the beach scenes in Baywatch. If I wrote a kid's book, it would be tofu treats or nada!].

The two mamas stared at their son. And the bow in Dottie’s hair.

[Ed note: Viewers will agree, it is rather voluminous.]

“What should we do?” said the two moms all together.

“Well, our son is eating the candy — now what? Should we do nothing?! Now, what is this mess?”

The son was eating almost all the candy.

“Now,” said James, “what should we do now? Eat all of the candy? Now what should we do? Hang on! What’s play?”

“Play is play,” said Dottie to James. James didn’t know what play meant.

Looking through the window is very impossible.

[Ed. note: truer words were never spoken. There is no view through the window, only various illustrations. An astute observer, the monkey.]

James, with a funny wig on (someone didn’t know he was a flower so poked all the petals off his face).

The end.

Really.

Have fun.

This afternoon, while listening to Gian Carlo Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors for the seven hundred and twenty-eighth time since Christmas, the lil’ monkey drew a picture. I am noting the obvious when I say that she, like her mother, and her mother’s entire family, is an Amahl and the Night Visitors FREAK. (Anyone not familiar with this delightful holiday operetta can watch the entire historic 1951 telecast of it thanks to the miracle of YouTube — it’s a one act, 54 minute video, including the composer’s introduction. More fun facts about the operetta can be found here on Wikipedia’s entry.)

At this point the girlie has already got half the lyrics memorized, and for days on end has only answered to the name “Kaspar” (one of the three kings in the opera). I’m sure what egged this on was that the beloved (at the lil’ monkey’s behest) told the whole story, and then sang all the parts to all the songs (baritone, straight tone boy soprano, and mezzo) as we drove down out of the mountains after our holiday vacation. Sure beats “Ninety-nine Bottles of Milk on the Wall” for two and a half hours. At the end of the rendition, our girlie was chanting “More opera! More opera!” At which point we gave each other that contented “Our work here is done” look.

I should also note that earlier today, she had the benefit of several hours’ time with her Rock Star Babysitter/Special Friend, a high school gal who’s a voice student of the beloved and a regular in her youth musical theater productions. This is the second musical theater gal who’s done some babysitting-for-voice-lessons bartering, and we neither of us have the heart to tell our daughter that these unbearably cool, beautiful, perfect, attentive, thoughtful young women are not simply floating into her life on gosssamer wings, to be her Special Friend. Even though I’m pretty sure it feels that way to her.

They were reading fairy tales, one after another, from a book my sister had given the girlie. Finally, with a shift in delivery noticable only to the most discerning ear, in the middle of the umpteenth tale the Rock Star Babysitter/Special Friend began to deviate from the narrative and imbue the princess witih feminist self-posession, a refreshing disinterest in the prince (or being saved by him), and an intriguing interest in gals.* All in the same sing-song, tale-telling tone she had been reading with. The finesse. I am sold on using theater artists as babysitters. If only we could afford to pay her a bonus on top of the barter thing.

But so. With this multi-media soup sloshing around in her head — one part opera playing on the stereo, one part fairy tale amalgam floating in her recent memory — this is what the lil’ monkey narrated as she drew:

There was an opera that was made into a movie. But at the end there was a thing that looks just like this. At the end. And I very know that opera. And I very know the movie because Sally and Mary have it. [Ed. note: Attentive readers may remember that Sally and Mary are our girlie's Imaginary Friends, from whom many, many interesting things emanate.]

It’s for two year-olds and three-year olds. It’s not scary at all.

Scary movies are for older kids.

I’m trying to draw the scenes in it. I’m kinda getting it. Has to do with — oh, actually, it’s — since we don’t have Jack and the Beanstalk — um… I think it’s Jack and the Beanstalk that this is. Yeah.

Tomorrow I want to put on my outside clothes and show this drawing to Sally and Mary ’cause they will LOVE it. They have seen this movie a HUNDRED TIMES.

I think this is where the Giant lives in Jack and the Beanstalk. This is what his house looks like.

I want to show everyone in the town. ‘Cause they will be AMAZED.

At which point she set down her pen, looked admiringly at her handiwork, and fell to listening to the last song in the opera.

Of course the townspeople will have to get in line after Baba, whose amazement at what goes on inside this little person’s head will NEVER CEASE.

* I’m happy to report that the thought to revise classic fairy tales has already occured to the lil’ monkey: a month or so back, she was building a set of wooden block stairs to a tiny blond doll, perched atop a pile of blocks. When the beloved asked her what she was doing, she said that Rapunzel had gone to the barber’s and had her hair cut off, so now she needed the stairs to get out of the tower. Sensible little bugger.