Where Are the Gay Grandpas in Children’s Picture Books?
Where Are the Gay Grandpas in Children’s Picture Books?
by Robert A. Schanke
Anyone searching for a children’s picture book that clearly features two gay grandpas will come up empty-handed, or at least confused.
Award-winning blogger Dana Rudolph has praised two recent children’s picture books that she describes “feature queer grandparents.” In the first book, David Hyde Costello’s Little Pig Saves the Ship (Orca Book Publishers, 2017) Grandpa and Poppy visit Little Pig, who is sad because he is too young to accompany his older siblings who are taking off for a week-long sailing camp. Trying to cheer him up, the two men show him how to make a toy ship. Eventually, Poppy takes Little Pig to a stream where they test out the new toy. When a gust of wind blows the ship into a fast current and over a waterfall, they try desperately to catch it. It is a fun story with charming illustrations. The relationship of Grandpa and Poppy, however, is unclear. Are they a gay couple? Or are they simply two grandfathers from both sides of the family? None of the text or dialogue provides an answer. In fact, after the first appearance of both Grandpa and Poppy, Grandpa is not seen again until the very end of the story, and then the two-page illustration has the two men seated in the background. Grandpa does not accompany Poppy and Little Pig on their adventure with the toy ship. If it were not for a short phrase in the text noting that the two men “came over that night” to see Little Pig, a reader might actually think that Poppy was Little Pig’s father and not grandfather. Both men have white hair and facial hair, but that does not mean they are both grandpas.
No signs of any kind identify their relationship…
In spite of that, a reviewer of the book on Amazon.com warns parents that if they do not want “to introduce their child to LGBTQ stuff,” they should not pick this book and noted the “very subtle inclusion of two gay grandpas.” (Brittany, March 7, 2018) Another reviewer called it “a subtle LGBT-friendly read.” (Tasha Saecker, July 20, 2017) Indeed, so subtle that many readers may not have picked up on it. The book’s Library of Congress cataloging information adds to the confusion. It includes as subjects in the book: juvenile fiction, fathers and sons, brothers and sisters, and even pigs. The list of subjects in the book makes no mention of grandfathers nor of anything suggesting a gay relationship.
In the second book, Grandad and Pops, the two men in Heather Smith and Brooke Kerrigan’s A Plan for Pops (Charlesbridge, 2019) are described by Rudolph simply as “a couple.” The text clearly identifies the two men as grandparents and that they live together. When their grandson Lou visits them on Saturdays, the three of them always have meals together, and they walk to the library. The rest of their day is usually spent playing with some tools in the workshop, listening to music, or retelling old family stories. One Saturday, Pops falls on the way to the library and is rushed to the hospital. When Pops returns home and learns he is pretty much confined to a wheelchair, he is “too sad to leave his room” and spends a lot of time “in his bed.” It is not identified as “their room,” nor as “their” bed, which would be standard terminology for a gay couple. Also, Pop has a single bed, meant for only one person. So, again, there is no sign of their being a gay couple. Pops does wear a T-shirt with the colorful rainbow on the front of it, but that does not necessarily define his sexuality as gay.
One reviewer of the book on Amazon referred to Pops as a “great grandfather” and Grandad as Lou’s grandfather. (M. Square, May 9, 2019) Again, the Library of Congress cataloging information lists several subjects included in the book: families, juvenile fiction, grandparents, social themes. But once again there is no mention of anything suggesting any gay subject matter. Even Rudolph admits, “Nowhere is there any indication there are queer characters.”
So why is there such lack of clarity, why such subtlety in featuring gay grandfathers?
Perhaps the vagueness is a remnant of the 1990s policy of “don’t ask, don’t tell” when it advised that LGBTQ military members not to disclose their sexuality for fear of being discharged. That policy lasted until 2011, and though it was intended specifically for the military, it has influenced the greater society. Even openly gay men tended to keep their personal lives private; they would not tell. So perhaps some authors of children’s books create their grandparents so they appear the way the grandparents of an earlier generation would have lived, trying to pass for straight.
Of course, the amount of subtlety in the characters depends on the goal and mission of the author and what responses the author wants readers to have. In an email written by David Hyde Costello, he explained his goal:
My personal agenda for portraying that relationship (in Little Pig Saves the Ship) was simply to create a world where it's totally normal and accepted that gay people exist in a child's world. So, it was subtle by design, but with a very deliberate intention. On a personal note, I am not gay, but grew up in the 70s and 80s in small towns in the Northeast where, even in progressive circles, homosexuality was treated as a punchline or a liability - in popular culture, and in person. I distinctly remember this being emotionally confusing when I was a boy, so I wanted to present a different and better picture for kids growing up today, whatever their own sexual orientation might be when they grow up.
The subtlety was intended, and the author certainly achieved his goal. The book is a charmer with the characters showing love and concern for each other. They enjoy being together and sharing their days. It is a loving, modern family, but not clearly gay.
Heather Smith has also explained her goal:
I never intended the relationship to be unclear. In fact, I think it’s quite obvious that Grandad and Pops are a loving married couple. It is never mentioned in the text because having the grandparents be Grandad and Pops as opposed to Grandma and Grandpa is inconsequential to the story. It just is what it is!
And yet, keeping the gay identity of characters so disguised, so camouflaged, as they presently are in children’s picture books seems to limit the potential of the stories. Library media specialist Dan Liljedahl has emphasized that “in reading fiction we begin to see others, and that builds empathy. It is important for children to see themselves in the books they are reading.” We need some children’s picture books wherein the gay characters are more open about their sexuality, especially now that same-sex marriage is legal, same-sex couples can adopt, and discrimination in the workplace is prohibited. Since today’s gay grandfathers are experiencing these changes, the stories being written need to reflect them more openly. The sexual identity of these grandfathers and the lives they are leading should not be ignored.
The children who are read these books could benefit by seeing more full representation--families like theirs, and / or families of friends, and perhaps even people like themselves.
The choice for an author who wants to create a children’s picture book with queer grandparents does not have to be limited to an either/or choice about the issues and challenges of being LGBTQ, or a story that ignores its existence. The new book Katy Has Two Grampas, written by Julie Schanke Lyford and her father Robert Schanke, reveals the experience of a first-grade girl with a lisp who is misunderstood by her classmates and teacher. When she talks about her two gay grandpas, (or “grampas,” as Katy says) she is frustrated when her teacher thinks she means to say “grandpa and grandma” and when other students tease her. Because she has such love for her gay grampas, she unexpectedly shines when introducing them as a married couple at a classroom celebration of Grandparents Day. The story does not conceal their sexuality, neither does it focus on it. To quote Rudolph again, “We need more books that show LGBTQ characters and their families but aren’t ‘about’ being LGBTQ per se. . . . We need more books . . . which show LGBTQ families simply as a part of a wider world.” Katy Has Two Grampas does this.
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