Retro Reads: Before Heather

While Lesléa Newman’s Heather Has Two Mommies is frequently cited as a ground-breaking picture book, it wasn’t actually the first picture book about a child growing up in a lesbian family. When Megan Went Away by Jane Severance and Tea Schook had been published ten years earlier in 1979 by Lollipop Power, the children’s imprint of a small press called Caroline Wren. Although modestly produced, it’s a well written story about the aftermath of a lesbian break-up, told from the point of view of young Shannon. Like many children of divorcing parents, she fears that her actions may have caused Megan to leave. Her mother assures her that isn’t true, and that things will get better with time.

For many years, this was the only book about a lesbian family that was available for children. Many lesbian readers had mixed feeling about it. Even though we were pleased to see a picture book about us, we were dismayed that the only book out there was about a relationship that didn’t last.

Four years later, Lollipop Power published another picture book by Jane Severance, Lots of Mommies, about a child living in a collective household. Emily and her mother, Jill, live with with three other women: Annie Jo, Vicki, and Shadowoman. When the kids at school are talking about their families, they don’t believe her when Emily tells them she has lots of mommies, until a playground accident brings all four mommies running. Although there’s nothing explicitly mentioned about Emily’s mother being a lesbian, all of the mommies look like they’ve just returned from a week at the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival (and who but an 80s lesbian would call herself Shadowoman?).

Both books are reasonably well written and it’s a shame Jane Severance didn’t get more encouragement as a picture-book writer. She was apparently about a decade too soon with her writing for children.
One additional Lollipop Power book deserves mention here. It’s the most unusual and also the best of all their publications. Jesse’s Dream Skirt by Bruce Mack, with pictures by Marian Buchanan, features a preschool-aged boy who wants, more than anything else to wear a skirt. It begins: “There are and were and always will be boys who wear dresses and skirts and things that whirl, twirl, flow and glow. One boy named Jesse liked wrapping himself in sheets to make a free-flowing dress.” Mack’s story wisely focuses on the way skirts and dresses make Jesse feel — he simply likes twirling around in them.

There’s just a bit of conflict when he wears the skirt his mom makes him to preschool. A couple of kids call him a “sissy” but the male teacher tells them he liked dressing up in flowing skirts himself when he was little. Several of the other boys try it out, some don’t, and it’s all okay. The story provides a positive, upbeat portrayal of a cross-dressing boy which is just as fresh and forward-looking today as it was when it was first published back in 1979. There have been so many times over the years that I wish I had this book to put into people’s hands when they are facing similar things with their young sons.

While Carolina Wren is still around, and continues to sell backlist titles from Lollipop Power such as Maria Teresa, Martin’s Father, and In Christina’s Toolbox, their queer-themed children’s books are no longer available. If you’re lucky, you may come across one some day in a used book store. And if you’re really lucky, you’ll find it in your local library.