Review: Mom and Mum Are Getting Married

Setterington, Ken. Mom and Mum Are Getting Married! Illustrated by Alice Priestley. Second Story Press, 2004.

I read about the Canadian One Shot World Tour today over on Fuse-8’s blog, and, as an aspiring Canadian myself, I didn’t want to miss a chance to participate.

Besides, I thought it would be a perfect opportunity for me to review a picture book by one of my favorite Canadians, Ken Setterington, a brilliant critic and an innovative youth services librarian in Toronto who, happily for us, is also a writer. He’s written one of the best picture books about a gay or lesbian family that’s been published to date.

Published shortly after marriage was legalized in Canada, his picture book focuses on a little girl’s excitement over her two moms’ upcoming marriage and the role she hopes to play in the wedding. At first she’s disappointed that Mom and Mum are having a simple ceremony at the family cottage with no role for her as a flower girl. But she’s consoled when her moms agree that she and her little brother, Jack, can be ring bearers.

At the last minute, however, her mothers worry that Jackis just too young to be entrusted with one of the rings, and decide they should carry both rings themselves. But when one of the mothers gets so nervous that she forgets where she put her ring, the little girl enlists her uncle’s help to calm her mothers’ nerves and fulfill her own desire.

Setterington’s warm story doesn’t try to explain or justify why this is a family with two moms. The family simply is. It’s also nice to see them as part of a loving extended family. It’s a welcome reflection of reality for children who are growing up in lesbian or gay-parented families — let’s just hope this reality becomes more widespread in the next few years.