Queer Children’s Books
Providing more representation for the queer community
I grew up reading Frog and Toad every night. I refused to let my parents read anything else to me. I lived for those amphibians riding on a tandem bicycle. To this day, I aspire to have a beautiful, hardcover anthology of Frog and Toad stories on my future coffee table. But what drew me to these two animals and their little stories?
Frog and Toad was first released in 1970, the year my mom was born. With thousands of copies sold, this classic is still being shared. The series has been around for a while and has impacted many along the way. Yet, children’s publishing has changed and morphed since then as one of the most prolific industries in the world of literature. With this change has come increased diversity and a wider audience.
As a queer woman, I think, only now have I realized what brought me to love Frog and Toad. Arnold Lobel, the writer and illustrator of the Frog and Toad series, was a gay man. Unfortunately, he lost his life to AIDS in 1987. Adrianne Lobel, the daughter of Arnold, did an interview with The New Yorker in 2016 and explained her belief that Frog and Toad was her father’s way of coming out and coming to terms with his sexuality. Knowing this now, I realize how this queer representation impacted me as a child and brought me to be proud of who I am today. It also changed how I looked at children’s literature and the publishing process, sparking me to look deeper into the idea of representation in this prolific industry.
I began working at a bookstore in 2022. It was something I had always dreamed of as a booklover and English major. For my sections, I was assigned nonfiction and children’s—quite the different spread. As much as I loved reading memoir, I found myself gravitating to the children’s section more and more. I flipped through the board and picture books. These were so different from what I had grown up with. Why? All I remember having for queer representation was Frog and Toad, but I just didn’t know it then. Now, my little nieces and other children all over the world have access to diversity, offering representation especially to the queer community. But this change hasn’t been easy, and there has been a long history and pushback of this process.
The beginning of children’s literature reaches all the way back to the 1400s, tracing to the oral traditions of many different cultures, but it was only recognized as literature in the 1800s. Aesop’s Fables is one of the most well-known pieces of oral-turned-to-written children’s work. In the 1800s, children’s illustrations and the concept of mass publishing began to form, making this genre of literature more accessible. Nonetheless, most stories focused on animals and were still rooted in their fairy-tale nature. Fast-forward to the mid-1900s and publishing companies began realizing the popularity of the market, making children’s books their own, separate industry in literature. Some of the most popular books from this time were Curious George (1941) and The Little Engine That Could (1930). Still, the main protagonists featured white people, animals, or inanimate objects—not much in the way of queer representation, until 1989 with the children’s book Heather Has Two Mommies by Lesléa Newman. This title sent shock waves into the publishing world but did not stop writers from writing books like these.
Queer people have always had a place and success in publishing, whether they were out or not. However, in recent decades queer publishers, editors, houses, and companies have grown exponentially, giving voices to all kinds of queer authors. Though this trend is great to see, with queer literature seeming to finally get its place at the table, it also puts a target on these outlets’ backs and creates a very niche realm. Content can be hard to come by, with struggles to get it produced and marketed well. Nonetheless, many independent publishers, queer or not, are struggling to compete against the Big Five. And although publishers are embracing queer editors and writers, many in the queer literary community are afraid that this trend is just that, a trend, and that it will come and go, with the outlets for this type of content eventually disappearing. Though queer children’s publishing houses are hard to come by, what is occurring broadly in publishing and the queer community is both great and troubling for the future of children’s books.
Why should queer people be represented in children’s publishing and literature? Like I said, as a queer person, I didn’t really grow up with queer characters. Most were animal based, like the Pigeon books or the Llama Llama Red Pajama series. Others revolved around white children, relationships, and people in general, like the Harry Potter series or the Series of Unfortunate Events. Though these books were formative and important in my life, sparking creativity and a love for reading, books like the Carry On series, And Tango Makes Three, Mommy, Mama, and Me also encouraged me to understand the complexities of sexuality through representation. It made me feel like I was normal and belonged in the world of literature. It made me feel safe. And I am sure this feeling carries through other people like me.
This past holiday season, I bought Dan Saks’ Families Can for my niece, Evy. It’s a board book showing what different families can look like: lesbian moms and aunts, gay dads and uncles, single parents, divorced couples, interracial families, and so on. My parents—my niece’s grandparents—are divorced. I am her queer aunt. Her mother is bisexual and is married to my brother. Without this kind of inclusive publishing and array of books with queer representation, young children wouldn’t be able to understand and see their own families, or themselves, in the books they consume. Countless years of fighting for representation has brought this change to fruition and, though there are concerns, there is a rise in queer publishing and literature in the children’s genre, and I hope to see it continue.
Syd Vincent (’23), a creative writing and publishing and editing dual major with a minor in international studies at Susquehanna University, graduated in the spring of 2023. She was born and raised in the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania with two rowdy older brothers and spent plenty of time outdoors. She has been published in multiple magazines including the Oakland Arts Review and the Loomings Literary Journal, and was a featured writer in The Ethicist, an interfaith literary magazine. They will be attending Pacific Lutheran University’s Rainier Writing Workshop MFA starting in the summer of 2024. In her free time, she enjoys listening to boygenius, watching cheesy horror movies, and spending time with her polydactyl cat, Shelby.