From: Nancegar at aol.com <Nancegar>
Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2002 09:37:29 EST

KT rightly raised the point the other day that although there are a few picture books published by small presses featuring gay and lesbian families, there haven't been any from the mainstream. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, my very wonderful publisher, has been wanting to do such a picture book for years, and I'm happy to say that in 2004, they'll be publishing my first picture book -- well, picture storybook would probably be a more exact term
-- called MOLLY'S FAMILY, illustrated by Sharon Wooding.

KT also mentioned looking forward to books about alternative families in which whatever makes the family "alternative" isn't an issue in the book; I couldn't agree more! A child with two moms expressed a similar desire at a writers' conference I attended some years ago, and I've never forgotten it. At the risk of blowing my own horn again, may I say that Two Lives Publishing
 -- another wonderful publisher -- is about to publish THE CASE OF THE STOLEN SCARAB, the first book in my new Candlestone Inn mystery series, centered on two middle-grade sleuths whose lesbian moms run an old inn. The lesbian couple (and the gay couple who run a restaurant nearby) are, like adults in most kids' books, in the background and sexuality is not an issue.

Now I'll shut up! Thanks for listening.

Nancy Garden www.nancygarden.com
Received on Thu 14 Nov 2002 08:37:29 AM CST