Scott’s Column: Pride Books for Kids

Joyce Wilson, who died in April, loved penguins.  And her favorite children’s book was And Tango Makes Three which tells the real-life story of two male penguins at the Central Park Zoo who raised a daughter together.

This being Pride month I thought I’d share some resources for parents to use to celebrate the occasion with their kids.

But, first, if you are an adult seeking resources on the intersection of LGBTQ+ and religion, there are SO many books, blogs, videos, and podcasts anymore.  I’m not really up on the latest ones (the ones I read are now many decades old) but I know that Urban Abbey down in the Old Market has an abundance of them, as you can see in this photo.

Back to ideas for kids.  This is an area I also can’t keep up with anymore, showing the real change in mainstream culture.  But here are a few of my favorites that I’ve used as a parent.

For the real history of Pride, I recommend Stonewall: A Building, An Uprising, A Revolution and Pride: The Story of Harvey Milk and the Rainbow Flag, both by Rob Sanders.  They are colorfully illustrated accounts of gay history written for young children.

Not particularly a Pride book, but good if you plan to take kids to the parade If You’re Going to a March by Martha Freeman.  It tells kids what they can expect at a justice march and how one prepares for it, including sign-making.

Urban Abbey—bookstore, coffee shop, and Methodist church—hosts monthly Drag Queen Story Hours in the Old Market.  Two recent, fun books are If You’re a Drag Queen and You Know It and The Hips on the Drag Queen Go Swish, Swish, Swish by Lil Miss Hot Mess and illustrated by Olga de Dios.  They are set to familiar songs “If you’re happy and you know it” and “Wheels on the Bus.”  My son delights in these books laughing and doing some of the movements.  He usually wants to get up and dance after we read them.

One I’ve picked up recently is The Pronoun Book by Chris Ayala-Kronos to help kids understand how personal identity pronouns work and can change.

And one we’ve read a handful of times during a children’s sermon is A Church for All by Gayle E. Pittman.  That book, some of these, and even more than I’ve listed are in our church’s children’s library for you to check out.