For the Love ofQueers:

Picturebooks about, for and bythe LGBT Community

Erica GillinghamJanuary 2010

This dissertation is presented in part fulfillment of therequirements of the

MA in Children’s Literature of Roehampton University.

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Abstract

In ‘For the Love of Queers,’ I will discuss the ways in

which picturebooks have been created to reflect and

reinterpret LGBT families and individuals through a medium

which is designed for the experience of the child. This

dissertation will survey a range of picturebooks about, for,

and by the LGBT community published in the United Kingdom

and the United States since 1976. Using John Stephen’s

reader response theory, I will examine the ideologies

communicated through ‘narrative transactions’ within the

visual and textual narrative. Applying queer theory, namely

Judith Butler’s ‘compulsory order of sex/gender/desire,’ I

will also discuss how identity categories of sex, gender and

sexuality are constructed and produced within LGBT

picturebooks. Overall, I argue that since the 1980s

picturebooks about, for and by the LGBT community have moved

beyond didacticism; instead, ‘troubling’ the ways in which

‘the family,’ romantic love and our identities are

understood. Furthermore, I suggest that queer picturebooks

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offer the child reader the opportunity, at their own level,

to notice and ask questions about the inevitable

inconsistencies that arise in every moment of our world.

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Acknowledgements

This dissertation would not have been possible without the

help, inspiration and love of many fabulous individuals. I

would like to thank the ever-insightful tutors of Children’s

Literature programme at Roehampton University—especially Liz

for her consistent inspiration and enthusiasm for all things

picturebook, and Alison for her compassion and guidance

throughout this ‘queer’ adventure. To Eleonora, gracias

amiguita for keeping me grounded. To Sarah, thank you for

loving subversive picturebooks as much as I do, and for

pushing me to look just one more time. To Andrea, that phone

conversation definitely got me unstuck; I will always be

grateful. Alexandra, amongst all the ways you constantly

support me, I particularly appreciate the instant

celebratory dance parties and all the dishes you have done.

Finally, this dissertation is dedicated to my parents, Chris

and Charlie, who give the best supportive hugs and have

always believed in me. This one’s for you.

Erica Gillingham

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London, EnglandJanuary, 2010

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Contents

Chapter 1

‘Troubling’ Picturebooks: An Introduction ........................................................................ 5

Chapter 2

Picturebooks about, for, and by LGBT Families .............................................................. 14

Chapter 3

Queer Love Stories ......................................................................................................... 32

Chapter 4

The Queer Child .............................................................................................................. 48

Chapter 5

What ‘Troubling’ Does: The Possibilities of Picturebooks .............................................. 62

Bibliography

Picturebooks .................................................................................................................... 68

Secondary Sources ........................................................................................................... 69

Appendix

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Appendix 1: John Stephens’ ‘Frame of narrative transactions’..................................... 72

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Chapter 1

‘Troubling’ Pictureboooks: An Introduction

Gertrude is Gertrude is Gertrude is Gertrude.

And Alice is Alice.

And Gertrude and Alice are Gertrude and Alice.

(Winter, 2009: n.p.)

So begins the recent picturebook about the life, love and

artistic friendships of Gertrude Stein by Jonah Winter and

Calef Brown, Gertrude is Gertrude is Gertrude is Gertrude (2009).

Playfully written, the facts learned about Gertrude’s life

are combined nonsensically with modern art, food, and the

occasional animal. The title and text echo Stein’s famous

line ‘rose is a rose is a rose is a rose’ and there is no

doubt the impact of that line. The repetition makes the

object seemingly unquestionable: a rose is a rose, Gertrude

is Gertrude—and Gertrude and Alice are Gertrude and Alice

(Winter, 2009: n.p.). Not only does the picturebook text

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acknowledge, implicitly, the committed, romantic

relationship between Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Tolkas from

the onset, but the presentation of that information allows

for a ‘troubling’ of Gertrude and Alice’s identity

categories. ‘Troubling’ the constructions of identity,

particularly the constructions of sexuality in contemporary

picturebooks, is the primary focus of this dissertation.

Since the early 1980s, picturebooks have been published for

children in Denmark, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom

(UK) and the United States (US) which attempt to deal with,

discuss, or narrate the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual and

transgender (LGBT) people, parents and children. Their

methods and didactic overtones vary and yet the primary

concern to address (or redress) the ways in which identity

and sexuality are constructed in our Western cultures runs

consistently throughout the picturebooks’ text and

illustrations. How I plan to produce queer readings of these

texts as picturebooks for children (and adults) is the focus

of this chapter. As an introductory example from Winter and

Brown’s picturebook, let me explain how a single, repetitive

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line—‘Gertrude is Gertrude is Gertrude is Gertrude’—troubles

anything, let alone the constructions of identity.

For this analysis, and many others to come, I am

borrowing the term ‘trouble’ from Judith Butler’s

foundational feminist/queer text, Gender Trouble (1990). In

her preface, Butler explains that to ‘trouble’ something is

to call into question a notion’s stability and examine the

power structures which attempt to hold something, like

gender, as a fixed category. In this context, Winter and

Brown’s line, like Stein’s own, ‘troubles’ or disallows a

direct interpretation of ‘who’ Gertrude is, forcing the

reader to create their own identity for Gertrude. A reader

might guess or know that Gertrude was a woman, a writer, an

artist, a lesbian, and a partner to Alice. The text and

illustrations of the picturebook give clues for each of

those interpretations—or intersections—of Gertrude, but they

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From Gertrude is Gertrude is Gertrude is Gertrude by Jonah Winter and Calef Brown.

do not explicitly confirm any one aspect of her identity.

The constant reference to who ‘Gertrude is’ throughout the

picturebook, with its varying illustrations of her in

different scenarios, ‘troubles’ the reader’s desire for a

stable understanding of their protagonist: Gertrude is

dynamic, unfixed. As such, Gertrude cannot be labelled

through any one categorization. She is not just a woman, a

lesbian, a writer, or an artist; she is also a queen, a

party host, a talker, a friend, and she doesn’t ‘have to

make sense’ (Winter, 2009: n.p.). Even the educational

biographical information included at the end of the

picturebook does not attempt to name or categorize who

Gertrude Stein was as Winter and Brown continue to give the

reader more information about Stein’s life without

succumbing to generalizations or ‘neat’ categories.

Politically, by not identifying Gertrude as ‘a woman

writer,’ ‘a female writer,’ or ‘a lesbian writer,’ Winter

and Brown construct a subversive narrative which

complicates, what Butler names, the compulsory order of

sex/gender/desire.

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To explain, Butler constructs her theory of the

compulsory order by focusing on three identities categories:

sex, gender, and sexuality. These identity categories

function within binaries which relate to a system of power.

For example, the category of ‘sex’ functions as a binary of

male and female and relates to the power system of

patriarchy; as a result, a person identified as ‘male’ has

more power because ‘male’ is constructed to be greater than

‘female.’ These categories of identity are often taken for

granted in our cultures; however, as a social

constructionist, Butler argues that identity categories are

created (or ‘constructed’) and therefore not static, or even

predetermined. Often argued as socially constructed, the

gender binary of masculine and feminine carries with each

gender a set of qualities deemed ‘appropriate’ for the

respective sexes (male and female). For example, one quality

deemed an ‘appropriate’ performance of their gender is that

girls will like and wear pink because they are girls. In the

compulsory order, gender is socially linked to a person’s

sex, and a person’s sex is socially believed to be

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biologically determined and therefore an indisputable fact.

Butler calls into question the biological determinism of the

sex binary, and its relation to gender, when she asks:

Can we refer to a “given” sex or a “given” genderwithout first inquiring how sex and/or gender is given,through what means? And what is “sex” anyway? Is itnatural, anatomical, chromosomal, or hormonal, and howis a feminist critic to access the scientificdiscourses which purport to establish such “facts” forus?” (1999: 10).

With her argument, Butler is asking how sex is constructed

as well as how it is given power in our social structure.

Furthermore she is asking why sex and gender are related in

such a compulsory way. The answer to her latter question is

that gender is merely a performance of characteristics

deemed ‘appropriate’ for a ‘given’ sex. As I will illustrate

in Chapter 4, performing a gender can be interpreted many

ways, but it is often linked superficially to a person’s

choice of clothing.

Thus, given that in Butler’s compulsory order an

identified sex dictates a person’s performed gender, both

identity categories in turn dictate a person’s desire, as

but not limited to sexuality. Sexuality also works in a

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binary, of heterosexuality and homosexuality, that carries

with it power and normative behaviours. In the instance of

sexuality, heterosexuality is consider the ‘normal’ or

‘natural’ desire (thus having the power) and operates such

that if a person is determined to be female, she will be

feminine and desire a masculine person identified as male in

a heterosexual relationship. Butler troubles this compulsory

line of thought to question the very logic it stands on,

arguing that the hegemonising effect of the binary system

disallows for identities outside of heteronormativity.

Understanding Butler’s compulsory order of sex/gender/desire

as such, Winter and Brown’s picturebook then subversively

constructs the identity of Gertrude without resorting to

specific binary categories of sex, gender or sexuality or

demanding that she, as a character and a person, make

‘logical’ sense in our socially constructed, compulsory

heteronormative world.

Writing a character, like Gertrude, which disallows

such compulsory tendencies may be a sizeable task, but

trying to locate and understand oneself is another task

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altogether. That journey of location and understanding is a

tradition in feminist and queer theory which often takes as

its starting point the ‘personal as political.’ Like many

feminist and queer theorist, a major starting point for my

research is a personal investment to location and understand

myself as a queer subject. Throughout my life, I have had a

deep personal desire to be understood simply as ‘Erica is

Erica is Erica is Erica,’ simultaneously wanting to be free

of identity politics and yet arguing for queer visibility

and reflection. I can easily name my identity categories:

female, woman, feminine, bisexual. I can also, personally

and politically argue for a more fluid, encompassing

identity category: queer. I desire to commit to a monogamous

relationship with my female partner and create a family,

including children, and have been an activist for gay

marriage rights, gay adoption rights and repealing

discriminatory laws based on ‘sexual orientation.’ I also

subscribe to radical queer politics which often reject

institutions such as marriage. These inconsistencies within

the construction of my identity are ever-present and the

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compulsions engrained in me to ‘make sense’ (i.e. to be

intelligible as anything other that heteronormative) are

heavy and seemingly unquestionable. Along with me on this

journey of location and understanding, I desire community. I

desire to see how others are narrating and constructing

their own identities and producing them in the world in

order to create community and ‘trouble’ the ways in which we

see and accept the people and the world around us.

But, why research picturebooks? Historically, both the

study of picturebooks and queer theory emerged more

prominently in the latter half of the 20th century, gaining

depth and breadth as the millennium came and went. Like

identity politics in queer theory, scholars have struggled

with what to name and how to describe their subjects in

picturebook studies. As Daniel Lewis writes in Reading

Contemporary Picturebooks: Picturing Text (2006):

[There] is still a good deal of disagreement over howwe might best understand the picturebooks. There haslong been a broad consensus about the basiccharacteristics of the form, its combining of twodistinct modes of representation—pictures and words—into a composite text, but it is precisely this

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doubleness, this two-sided quality, which has led tomuch confusion and disagreement (2006: xiii).

Change the subject from picturebooks to queer individuals

and you might recognize a potential beginning argument in

identity politics. Furthermore, there is a familiar and

important attention paid to ‘the language we use to talk and

write about the subject,’ questioning the ways through which

the subjects are produced (Lewis, 2006: xiv). For example,

‘how should you spell picturebook…?’ (Lewis, 2006: xiv). Is

the word (and thus the text) two separate words, hyphenated,

or compounded? Lewis chooses the compound version of

‘picturebook,’ as do I, to better ‘reflect the compound

nature of the artefact itself…examining the picturebook is

to look at it whole’ (2006: xiv). Looking at the picturebook

as a whole allows the picturebook text to be ‘read’

textually and visually, while at the same time recognizing

that how to do this is still being understood. Still, I am

far from the first person to attempt to look at the

picturebooks through a queer lens. While the field of

queering children’s literature is growing, for this

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dissertation I will be drawing particularly from Melynda

Huskey’s article ‘Queering the Picture Book’ (2002) and

Rebecca Rabinowitz’s ‘Messy New Freedoms: Queer Theory and

Children’s Literature’ (2006). To queer a picturebook,

Huskey encourages readers to look ‘for the subtle and

flamboyant clues that reveal our presence—the hairpins some

books drop all over the place’ (2002: 74). Rabinowitz simply

states that ‘queerness can be found all over’ (2006: 25), it

is just a matter of finding it.

While theorists argue that queerness can be found

wherever we want to look, more and more picturebooks have

been produced since the 1980s which are written specifically

about, for and by the LGBT community. As these texts are

being produced for children, controversy over introducing

issues of homosexuality, gay marriage, and gay parenting of

children have become hot topics in the mass media.

Simultaneously, rights of marriage and adoption have been

granted to same-sex couples and individuals while more

families are able to ‘come out of the closet’ with LGBT

parents or family members. As a result, a demand has been

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created for picturebooks which represent and reflect

individuals and families of the LGBT community. One aspect

of the demand for queer picturebooks stems from a desire to

educate about LGBT families. Another aspect is to provide

children (and adults) of LGBT families with picturebooks

that reflect their own lives (in addition to adding to the

cannon of picturebooks about ‘families’ for all children).

In both instances, the majority of picturebooks to be

discussed in Chapter 2, as well as throughout the

dissertation, will have underlying ideologies about familial

configurations. To aid in the discussion of families, I will

look to Elizabeth Thiel’s The Fantasy of Family as she

investigates the Victorian construction of family in

literature as a ‘domestic ideal’ of ‘mother, father and

offspring’ (2008: 157). Referring to those families ‘outside

of the established order,’ she originates the term

‘transnormative family’ which ‘identifies those family units

headed by single parents, step-parents, aunts, uncles,

grandparents, siblings or the state that exists in

opposition to the “natural” and “complete” family of

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husband, wife and children’ (Thiel, 2008: 8). In her

conclusion, ‘Into the Future: The Enduring Potency of the

Nineteenth-Century Domestic Ideal,’ Theil relates the

fantasy of the ideal family to the representation of

transnormative familial configurations (here including

family units headed by two women or two men) in contemporary

picturebooks. Specifically, she highlights two early LGBT

family picturebook texts: Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin (1983) by

Susan Bösche and Andrea Hansen, and Heather has Two Mommies

(1989) by Lesléa Newman and Diana Souza. By examining the

ways in which ‘the family’ are produced within these

picturebooks, we can better understand the ideologies at

work in picturebooks about and for LGBT families.

In order to understand how ideologies, of the family,

queer theory or otherwise, are communicated in children’s

literature I will be relying on John Stephens’ ‘Frame of

narrative transactions’ (See Appendix 1) from Language and

Ideology in Children’s Fiction (1992). Stephens works from a non-

linear model which allows for back and forth interactions

between the events and existents of the story and, what he

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identifies as, the key participating pairs: author/reader

(real world), implied author/implied reader (ideological

function) and narrator/narratee (executive function).

Stephens’ narrative transactions occur between the

individuals of the pairs as well as between pairings. The

narrator tells the narrative to the narratee regarding the

events and existents of the story. This narrative is then

‘overheard’ by the implied reader, as told by the implied

author. As the crucial communication is taking place between

the implied author and the implied reader, Stephens’ has

flagged this transaction as carrying out the ‘ideological

function’ of a text, or the space where ideology is

conveyed. The diagram’s dotted line surrounding this

transaction infers that this ideology is then transferred to

the actual world reader from the actual world author (in a

way which does not affect the narrator or narratee)

(Stephens, 1992: 20-26). Whether or not the actual world

author gets across their intended or unconscious ideological

messages to the actual world reader is always a question;

however, Stephens’ frame of narrative transactions is

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convincing and helpful when determining the meaning-making

process by the real world reader through examining the

paired relationship of the implied author/implied reader.

For it is by looking at the implied author and implied

reader of Gertrude is Gertrude is Gertrude is Gertrude, that we can

begin to make arguments for the picturebook’s subversive

narrative and meaning made by the real world reader. The

implied authors know about Stein’s life and are familiar

with her work enough to mimic her rhythm and style.

Additionally, the implied authors take care to address Stein

and her companions’ identities as unconcerned with

categories and more concerned with details and

characteristics. In exchange, the implied readers are

children who enjoy repetition, word play, writing and art as

well as adults who are familiar with Stein and, more than

likely, align themselves with her politics and/or lifestyle.

Through these transactions, we can argue that the ideology

conveyed promotes the celebration of the arts, independent

thinking, acceptance and appreciation. What this framework

of transactions also allows for is the possibility of

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children (and adults) to notice, at their own level,

inconsistencies within their own culture, question them, and

‘trouble’ their conceptions of the world themselves.

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Chapter 2

Picturebooks about, for, and by LGBT Families

The family is the first social structure with whichchildren interact, and usually the first contact a childhas with books is with picture books... Picture bookscan, of course, exist for fun, but they can never besaid to exist without either a socializing or educationintention, or else without a specific orientationtowards the reality constructed by the society thatproduces them...a picturebook will be grounded in someversion of consensus reality and use conventional codesof representation (Stephens, 1992: 158).

Like those discussed in Stephens’ chapter ‘Primary Scenes:

the family and picture books,’ picturebooks about, for and

by lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT) families

operate as socializing and educational tools for young

children, and adults. In short, picturebooks concerning LGBT

families are invested in transferring normalizing and

accepting ideologies concerning who makes up a family and

how non-heteronormative families are constructed. Such

ideologies are communicated through the transactions between

Stephens’ implied author/implied reader pair outlined in his

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book Language and Ideology in Children’s Fiction (1992). As referenced

in Chapter 1 of this dissertation, Stephens’ frame of

narrative transactions distinguishes three pairs of

participants within a text (author/reader, implied

author/implied reader, narrator/narratee), highlighting the

implied author/implied reader pair as encompassing the

ideological function (1992: 21). In this chapter, I will

survey a selection of LGBT family picturebooks widely

available in the UK and the US over the past thirty years,

historically ranging from such texts as the translated UK

edition of Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin (1983) by Susan Bösche

and Andreas Hansen to the US editions of Heather has Two

Mommies by Lesléa Newman and Diana Souza (1989) and Newman

and Carol Thompson’s Mommy, Mama and Me and Daddy, Papa and Me

(2009). I will argue that there are distinctions between a

picturebook about an LGBT family and a picturebook for an

LGBT family (regardless of whether or not a picturebook is

by an LGBT author or illustrator) and that the difference

can be tracked within the transactions between the implied

author and the implied reader. I will illustrate how LGBT

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family picturebooks have the potential to craft textual and

visual narratives without the necessity of heavy didacticism

or the erasure of difference.

Before jumping into an analysis concerning the

difference of a picturebook for and/or about a LGBT family,

however, I want to first open a discussion of the term ‘LGBT

family.’ Stephens argues that ‘the family is the first

social structure with which children interact’ and

picturebooks offer ‘some version of consensus reality’ with

regards to children, their family structures and the social

world around them (1992: 158). But what ‘version of

consensus reality’ is he referring to and who makes up ‘the

family?’ Stephens takes for granted his readers’ ‘consensus’

understanding of family, referencing instead different

family members through his analysis—mother, father,

siblings, grandparents, etc—instead of defining ‘the

family.’ In The Fantasy of Family (2008), Elizabeth Thiel

discusses the template of the ‘domestic ideal’ (‘mother,

father, and offspring’) as prevalent throughout children’s

literature from the nineteenth-century to the present day

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(2008: 157). Thiel argues that while ‘transnormative

families’ appear in children’s literature, ‘nevertheless,

the concept of the domestic ideal remained the template by

which all was gauged and it has proved resistant to change,

regardless of the new paradigms of family life that are now

intrinsic to the Western World’(2008: 157). She continues

on to state ‘Even those authors who ostensibly focus on the

children of transnormative families frequently incorporate a

longing for the familial ideal which is both nostalgic and

poignant, a manoeuvre that reinscribes the desirability of

the idyllic domestic sphere...’ (Thiel, 2008: 159). As Thiel

describes, transnormative families are intrinsic within our

modern Western culture, accepting multiple family structures

which move beyond the ideal family, such as families headed

by two women or two men. Considering her argument then, even

as children’s own familial structures may be transnormative,

the template of the ideal family structure of ‘mother,

father, and offspring’ in an ‘idyllic domestic sphere’

remains present (explicit or not) within the picturebooks

children read today (Thiel, 2008: 157-159).

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To pair Thiel’s definition of the ‘ideal’ family with

the term ‘LGBT’ then becomes a political calculation. For an

example of the political relationship between LGBT and ‘the

family’ look no further than the definition of the phrase

‘family values.’ The Oxford English Dictionary defines

‘family values’ as:

values attributed to or derived from family life; spec.values allegedly learnt or reinforced within atraditional, close family unit, and typically relatingto moral standards and discipline (in this sense, freq.associated with a conservative political outlook inwhich such values are often perceived to be inregrettable decline) (OED).

In the 2008 US and state elections, conservative candidates

and supporters argued that the institution of marriage and

the family were in ‘regrettable decline,’ often in reference

to legalizing same-sex marriage or adoption. As such, with

the anti-gay marriage California Yes on 8 campaign employing

the slogan ‘Protect Marriage’ as a specific example, ‘family

values’ became short-hand for anti-gay (Protect Marriage).

Conversely, on the radical left side of the political

spectrum, the queer community also does not necessarily want

anything to do with gay marriage or gay adoption either.

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From Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore’s edited collection of

essays That’s Revolting! Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation (2008),

Carol Queen writes in her essay ‘Never a Bridesmaid, Never a

Bride’ that she ‘could have never predicted that joining the

[US] Army, getting ordained, and getting hitched would be

the big issues they are as the new century dawns’ (2008:

112). For a radical queer like Queen, legalizing gay

marriage is not what her politics are interested in. In the

same volume, Stephanie Schroeder essay ‘Queer Parents: An

Oxymoron? Or Just Moronic?’ argues that queers consider

their politics before becoming concerned with family in her

essay. Schroeder states:

I am not and will not be just like...everyone else. Iwill proclaim my allegiances to the queer community, tomyself, to my new lover and son as a lesbian and I willnot accept being accepted—for something I am not....Queers must take these things into consideration beforeexchanging their activist/community membership cardsfor shitty diapers and college tuition bills (2008:104).

For Queen and Schroeder, to be queer and be involved in

campaigns (or picturebooks) about or for gay marriage or

LGBT families is not first on their political check list.

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Thus, the context of the LGBT family desires further

definition as from either end of the political spectrum, the

LGBT community and the concept of the family, when combined

together, create political tidal waves.

When discussing LGBT families, I am referring to both

the characters found in picturebooks and the actual world

readers of these picturebook texts. I have chosen ‘LGBT’

because it is the term most often used by political and

activist organizations, such as the nationwide Human Rights

Campaign in the US (HRC). Some organizations, like the UK’s

Stonewall, do not include transgender in their acronyms

(LGB) and other organizations additionally include

‘Intersex’ to create the acronym LGBTI (Stonewall; OSI). While

LGBT is still limiting in its (re)production and

reinforcement of the (seemingly) discreet categories of

lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender, as a woman who

identifies as bisexual, I am hesitant to erase the

multiplicity (and thus myself) from the LGBT community of

same-sex parents. For my purposes, simply reading same-sex

parents as either ‘gay’ or ‘lesbian’ reinforces not only the

31

binary of sexuality but the gender binary as well. With the

term ‘LGBT family,’ I hope to imply the political weight of

these picturebooks in addressing LGBT issues while at the

same acknowledging multiple variations (and limitations) of

family that occur. With a clear LGBT family focus, these

picturebooks display the children as part of nuclear or

extended family unit which includes same-sex couples in both

picturebooks about LGBT families and for LGBT families.

Translated from Danish to English by Louis Mackay and

published in the UK in 1983, Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin by

Susan Bösche and Andreas Hansen depicts the life of a child

within a LGBT family, illustrated with black and white

photographs. As Thiel notes in her conclusion section

‘Drumming Home the Message,’ the picturebook narrates, ‘a

weekend in the lives of Jenny, her father Martin, and his

partner Eric. It features a birthday party and a visit from

Jenny’s mother, addresses the issue of homophobia and

presents the transnormative grouping as a happy family unit’

(2008: 164). More than just a story about Jenny and her

parents, the picturebook attempts to address issues that

32

affect LGBT families. However, prior to its publishing,

there were no popular picturebooks about same-sex parents,

making Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin one of the first to approach

the subject. Shedding some light on the historical context

of the picturebook, journalist Adi Bloom quotes Paul Patrick

in a 2006 Times Education Supplement article ‘Jenny still an

outcast after 20 years,’ that at that time ‘there was no

acknowledgement that gay or lesbian people could be parents.

So even if it had been a good book, there would have been a

fuss’ (2006: 3).

Unfortunately for the LGBT community, Jenny Lives with Eric

and Martin created a big ‘fuss’ and it was not a good

children’s picturebook, leading to political action

affecting adults and children. In the Times Education

Supplement, Patrick goes on to discuss the downfalls of this

documentary picturebook, ‘it wasn’t [a good book]. There was

no understanding of children’s use of language. And it chose

to show two men in bed together, apparently naked, with a

small girl between them. On all sort of levels, it wasn’t a

good children’s book’ (Bloom, 2006: 3). In truth, much of

33

the lasting criticism about Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin regards

the decision to include photographs of Jenny, Eric and

Martin having breakfast in bed wearing little if no

clothing. Politically, Thiel notes that Bösche and Hansen’s

picturebook acted as a catalyst for conservative

legislation:

The book initiated something of a moral panic in the UKwhen it was found in a school library; as a result, in1988, Margaret Thatcher’s government introduced thelegislative Clause 28 which effectively banned thepromotion of homosexuality by local authorities. Theclause was repealed in 2003, but the book itself, nolonger easily available, has become a collector’s item(2008: 164).

Bloom’s article concurs by calling Jenny an ‘outcast’ and

discussing the ways in which schools currently struggle to

find ‘appropriate’ picturebooks with which to read about

LGBT families, the focus being to educate children about

varying family structures.

In essence, Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin focuses on a

narrative about an LGBT family. Aside from the young age of

the protagonist neither the language nor the visual

narrative, as Patrick notes, imply a child readership. Thiel

34

argues that the picturebooks

boils down to ‘mere

propaganda’ (2008: 164).

With little textual or

visual evidence to argue

otherwise, the picturebook as

propaganda, promoting the

ideologies of the acceptance

and appreciation of LGBT

families, becomes more about educating ‘others’ about

accepting an LGBT family as ‘normal.’ The implied readers

are not LGBT families who live their lives day in and day

out as an LGBT family with young children but rather an

implied readership with who does know how a family functions

with LGBT parents. In this way, Bösche and Hansen’s didactic

approach to their ideological messages fails to provide a

picturebook for an LGBT family.

Of a similar vintage, the original version of Heather has

Two Mommies (1989) by Lesléa Newman and Diana Souza was ‘one

of the most challenged books of the 1990s’ in the US about

35

From Heather has Two Mommies by Lesléa Newman and Diana

LGBT families, labelled as evidence for the ‘militant

homosexual agenda’ (Newman, 2000: 31-32). The picturebook

focuses on the young protagonist Heather who ‘has two

mommies: Mama Jane and Mama Kate’ (Newman, 1989: n.p.).

Above this resounding, singular line on the recto of the

double page spread, Souza has drawn a black and white

depiction of the happy, nuclear family of two moms, their

daughter and their two pets. The narrative then flashes

backwards in time, depicting how Jane and Kate met, when

they moved in together, and the process of the conception

and birth of Heather. The climax of the story centres on

Heather’s new realization at playgroup about her family: ‘I

don’t have a daddy,’ Heather says. She’d never thought about

it before. Did everyone except Heather have a daddy?’

(Newman, 1989: n.p.). The narrative progresses in an effort

normalize all family configurations by encouraging, as Thiel

notes, each child to describe their family and draw a

representation ‘their own family group’ to be hung on the

school wall (Thiel, 2008: 164). The final take-home message

comes from the playgroup leader, Molly, as she explains that

36

‘Each family is special’ (Newman, 1989: n.p.). For some,

this liberal ideology was no doubt exemplar ‘proof’ of the

‘militant homosexual agenda’ implicit and explicit in the

picturebook.

For others, Heather has Two Mommies became a starting

point for picturebooks about and for LGBT families—even

while still coming under much criticism. The initial

critiques of the 1989 narrative largely concerned the

explanation of artificial insemination, dense text for its

young child readers, and uncoloured drawings. Addressing the

first two criticisms, the 10th anniversary edition (2000) was

published after deleting the scenes detailing Heather’s

conception and birth as well as paring down some of the text

to, what Patrick might deem, ‘a child’s use of language’—a

few editing choices Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin might have

benefited from as well. The 20th anniversary edition (2009)

keeps the 1990 textual version, but spices up the

illustrations by adding colour to all of the drawings.

Additional criticisms have focused on the narrative’s

didactic approach as well as the textual and visual

37

narrative requiring the explanation of concepts beyond

different families. Indeed, the original 1989 textual

version of Heather has Two Mommies can require scientific and

cultural explanations. The most glaring example is the

scenes of Jane’s insemination and pregnancy. The text

rightly relies on medical terminology for its explanations,

but terms such as ‘sperm,’ ‘egg,’ ‘womb,’ and ‘vagina’ still

necessitate definition. Furthermore, a curious child might

wonder where the sperm comes from that the doctor inserts

into Jane’s vagina or how sperm and an egg form a baby named

Heather (Newman, 1989: n.p.). Underneath this section of the

story, the implied author assumes her implied readership

will do that specific reproductive explanation work for her.

But who is the implied readership for Heather has Two

Mommies, and why that particular readership? Smaller

textual and visual transactions, in addition to the scenes

described above, suggest a dual address with the implied

author visualizing her implied readers to be the adult and

child reading together: teacher and student, parent and

offspring. One such visual example is the illustration of

38

Mama Kate wearing a t-shirt with the words ‘No Nukes,’ a

slogan for the campaign against nuclear proliferation. As

nuclear weapons play no other part in the story, the slogan

may be there to confirm the liberal politics of Heather’s

two mommies; the illustration can also provide another

complicated explanation for the accompanying adult reader to

the child. Of the target audience, Thiel argues that with

the ‘excessively simple solution to Heather’s dilemma’ and

the ‘young age of the central protagonist and the

straightforward illustrations and the story-line that [the

picturebook] is for a pre-schooler’ (2008: 164-165). Even as

I disagree with her critique that the audience for Heather has

Two Mommies is solely the implied child reader, I do

similarly commend Newman and Souza’s picturebook as ‘a brave

attempt to normalize a transnormative family headed by two

women’ (Thiel, 2008: 164). This is because regardless of

whether or not an adult reader is implied, the take-home

message of the picturebook operates as one to expand a

child’s view of the world to include not only their family,

but other families as well. Thiel concludes, ‘Overall, it

39

presents a world in which all family types are available,

acceptable, and ‘normal’ and so could be perceived as

challenging the numerous ‘natural’ family models that might

also surround the child reader, although it does so in a

strictly non-confrontational manner’ (2008: 165). In such a

way, even as its ideology remains didactic, Heather has Two

Mommies is not just about an LGBT family, but about and for

ALL families.

Throughout the 1990s and into the twenty-first-century,

new picturebooks attempted to similarly address LGBT family

configurations, narrating different stories about LGBT

families, but also providing much needed picturebooks for

LGBT families. First published in 1990, Daddy’s Roommate

written and illustrated by Michael Willhoite contains rich

watercolour illustrations and simple accompanying text of

the child protagonist, his biological father, Daddy, and

Daddy’s roommate, Frank. While Heather has Two Mommies tried to

explain artificial insemination, Daddy’s Roommate attempted

to explain homosexuality, the young boy protagonist

narrating the resolution from the kitchen stool:

40

Mommy says Daddy and Frank are gay. At first I didn’tknow what that meant. So she explained it. Being gay isjust one more kind of love. And love is the best kindof happiness (Willhoite, 1990: 24-27).

Subtlety and lack of explicit ideology are not

characteristics of Willhoite’s picturebook, nor are they for

Judith Vigna’s My Two Uncles (1995) which provided a similar

message about the child protagonist’s uncle and his partner.

In 2008, Sarah S. Brannen chose to illustrate her ‘gay uncle

story’ by anthropomorphising her protagonist and family as

guinea pigs in Uncle Bobby’s Wedding. There does not appear to

be a clear purpose for anthropomorphising her characters

(other than she owns guinea pigs herself), but the guinea

pigs do not detract from the overall narrative. In contrast,

Brannen’s narrative, visually and textually, is less

didactic that Willhoite’s and Vigna’s as her focus is on the

young girl protagonist’s fear of losing her favourite uncle,

Bobby, rather than any familial disapproval of same-sex

marriage. Indeed, the marriage of Uncle Bobby and Uncle

Jamie appears, in Brannen’s picturebook text, to be

completely ‘natural.’

41

The use of

animals in

children’s

literature is not

uncommon—far from

it—thus And Tango

Makes Three first

published in

2005 by Justin

Richardson, Peter Parnell and Henry Cole is not surprising

in its portrayal of a penguin family. What is uncommon about

the animal protagonists is their veracity: the picturebook

is a true story of two male penguins, Roy and Silo, at the

Central Park Zoo in New York City and the expansion of their

family with the birth of a female penguin, Tango. From the

first moment with the picturebook, the reader views the

happy family with their newest edition on the front cover,

snuggling up together for a watercolour portrait against the

backdrop of the penguin house. Turning to the title page,

Roy

42

From And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson, Peter Parnell, and Henry

and Silo are almost in the exact same position, except this

time drawn without Tango. Tango’s omission offers the reader

the opportunity to wonder who these penguins are and how

they came to be the family seen on the front cover. To be

sure, the opening of the visual and textual narrative

implies that this picturebook is most certainly about the

creation of a family, in the animal world and the human

world. The first four pages contain a dozen illustrated

human and animal families in the park and the zoo. The

families are followed by an introduction to the penguin

house and an explanation of how penguins become a couple.

The reader learns that two male penguins were different

because they were not interested in girls, but did

everything together instead: ‘They bowed to each other. And

walked together. They sang to each other. And swam together.

Wherever Roy went, Silo went too’ (Richardson, 2007: n.p.).

After a while, their zookeeper Mr. Gramzay decides that they

are two penguins ‘in love’ (Richardson, 2007: n.p.).

As the picturebook text continues, the narrative and

illustrations repeatedly affirm the validity and substance

43

of Roy and Silo’s status as a legitimate penguin couple.

Pages of borderless sequential illustrations show the

passage of time as the two male penguins build a nest, watch

over it, find an egg shaped rock and try to hatch it.

Finally, Mr. Gramzay finds an extra egg from one of the

other penguin couples to give to Roy and Silo to see if they

can hatch their own baby penguin. After weeks of tending the

egg, Cole illustrates Tango hatching from her egg over

thirteen images, ending with Tango fully emerged from the

egg with ‘CRAAAACK!’ for her final push into the world

(Richardson, 2007: n.p.). As Richardson and Parnell note in

the text, ‘Tango was the very first penguin in the zoo to

have two daddies’ (2007: n.p.). Just as Roy and Silo did

everything as a couple, the family of three now does

everything together, just like ‘all the other animals in the

zoo, and all the families in the big city around them’

(Richardson, 2007: n.p.). The final endpaper of the

picturebook provides the verifying details of Roy, Silo and

Tango’s true story, filling in some of the facts not

mentioned in the text. And while the message is implicit

44

throughout the text and illustrations, the back cover

provides the explicit ideologies at work in And Tango Makes

Three: ‘Based on a true story, this charming and heart-

warming tale proves that all you need to make a family is

love’ (Richardson, 2007).

No stranger to the love story and picturebook of Roy

and Silo, The New York Times has reported on the pair and its

subsequent picturebook co-authors since 2004 when the

journalist Dinita Smith broke the story of the same-sex

penguin couple and has documented public’s reactions to the

picturebook (Smith, 2004). Like Heather has Two Mommies in the

1990s, Jennifer 8. Lee reported that Richardson and

Parnell’s narration of the penguin family has become ‘the

most challenged book in the United States,’ even as the co-

author couple became a family of their own with daughter

Gemma’s birth (Lee, 2009). Still, co-author Richardson was

quoted in a 2005 article by Jonathan Miller as stating that

his and Parnell’s, his co-author and partner, reason behind

writing the picturebook was ‘to help parents teach children

about same-sex parent families’ (Miller, 2005). Some readers

45

have looked to Roy and Silo’s story as proof of

homosexuality as ‘natural,’ but Richardson maintains that

their narrative is ‘no more an argument in favor of human

gay relationships than it is a call for children to swallow

their fish whole or sleep on rocks’ (Miller, 2005).

Regardless of whether or not penguin same-sex couples are

‘proof’ of homosexuality as ‘natural,’ And Tango Makes Three

has become a tool for teachers and parents alike to teach

children about LGBT families.

Thus far, all of the picturebooks discussed have been

about LGBT families, and for reasons ranging from narrative

structure to availability they have also served as books for

LGBT families. In the some instances, the picturebooks have

been by authors that are a part of LGBT families or the LGBT

community, like Newman, Richardson and Parnell. In the same

year as And Tango Makes Three was published, Out for Our

Children, a London Lesbian parent group, in partnership with

Onlywomen Press began published picturebooks which were no

longer concerned with delivering a didactic message to its

implied readership about LGBT families. Rather, Out for Our

46

Children wanted to provide

fun and inventive ‘books and

resources that reflect our

children’s lives and family

experiences’ (Out, emphasis

mine). Their website declares

the message behind their

group: ‘A child needs love,

support and acceptance for

who they are and where they come from: we believe that

inclusive books and other materials are an essential part of

that support’ (Out). As part of their work,

author/illustrators Katy Watson and Vanda Carter have

produced two books associated with Out for Our Children:

Spacegirl Pukes (2005) by Watson and Carter, and Carter’s If I Had

a Hundred Mummies… (2007). In addition, the same publisher

also produced a similar text by Tamsin Walker entitled Not

Ready Yet! (2009). Contrasting the previous picturebooks

discussed, these three picturebooks imaginative or realistic

stories of young children who happen to have two mothers,

47

lacking any explanation (or need thereof) regarding same-sex

couples, homosexuality, fertilization, birth, or ‘different’

families.

The first of the three picturebooks,

Spacegirl Pukes offers its readers a visceral

tale of a young girl astronaut whose space mission is

cancelled due to illness. From the front cover of Spacegirl

‘puking’ in a bucket, the picturebook text and illustrations

have everything to do with the bodily functions and

consequences of queasy illnesses. At the onset of the

narrative illustrated in ink and colourful paint, Spacegirl

is suited up for her mission, but does not feel well as she

clutches her ‘tummy’ (Watson, 2005: n.p.). After she is sick

on the control board, her two mothers—Mummy Loula and Mummy

NeeNee—clean her up and take her home, Mummy NeeNee

declaring ‘you must have caught that bug from your friend

Starboy’ (Watson, 2005: n.p.). In rapid succession, both

‘mummies,’ the cat named Trotsky, and a fellow crew member

all fall ill, ‘bleurging’ everywhere (Watson, 2005: n.p.).

In the end, Mummy Loula and Mummy NeeNee aid in getting

48

From Spacegirl Pukes by Katy Watson and Vanda Carter.

Spacegirl’s rocket off the ground and Spacegirl on her

mission to the stars (Watson, 2005: n.p.).

Visually, the illustrations not only offer rather

disgusting depictions of vomit and green faces, but also a

glimpse into the lives of an LGBT family comprised of two

mothers, a daughter and a cat. Books, biscuits, medicines

and space paraphernalia are scattered about the house and

both ‘mummies’ cycle and skate to and from the space

station. Textually, no additional information is learned

about Spacegirl’s family other than that she has two mothers

and their names. In UK newspapers, Spacegirl Pukes has been

heralding (and attacked) for broaching the subject of same-

sex parents within the classroom. In the Times Education

Supplement, Adi Bloom reviews the picturebook as helpful in

showing ‘pupils that a different family make-up is possible’

(2007). In other words, Spacegirl Pukes offers, in Theil’s

terms, a transnormative family with ‘two mothers.’ Also that

same year, Anushka Asthana reported for The Observer that the

picturebook was part of ‘a pilot scheme introducing books

dealing with gay issues to children from the ages of four to

49

11’ (2007), alongside And Tango Makes Three and King & King

(2002). While Spacegirl Pukes has become a well-noted

picturebook for introducing LGBT families to children, the

picturebook text does not contain the same explicit

didacticism as the other picturebooks with which it has been

grouped. Unlike And Tango Makes Three, Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin,

or the other picturebooks previously mentioned, the implied

audience is predominantly the LGBT family and the

ideological acceptance of the LGBT family is not explicit in

this picturebook. As I will also argue in later chapters,

Spacegirl Pukes, rather, opens up the opportunity for the child

reader to associate with Spacegirl and her two mothers

(regardless of whether or not the child reader is from an

LGBT family) and raise questions or concerns about that

family structure—if the child has any at all. Instead, this

picturebook by members of the LGBT community provides a

basic story for LGBT families to enjoy.

50

As Out for Our Children writes, providing picturebooks

for children of all ages that reflect their own lives and

familial experiences has been the motivation behind most of

these picturebooks. With Stephens’ argument that

picturebooks represent educational and social learning

tools, even the most basic picturebooks—board books for

toddlers—need to fulfil that role as well. In 2009, Lesléa

Newman with illustrator Carol Thompson produced a pair of

board books for families with two mother and two fathers:

Mommy, Mama, and Me; and Daddy, Papa, and Me. The opening double

page spread of Daddy, Papa and Me delivers the tone of both

board books with its mood and delight: on the verso, the

small androgynous toddler is running towards his fathers51

From Daddy, Papa, and Me by Lesléa Newman and Carol Thompson.

holding out a crown and a monkey mask; the fathers (one

dressed in khaki trousers and knitted vest, the other

dressed in shirt, jeans and slippers) are on the recto

drying the dishes and putting away breakfast. On the verso,

the child calls out ‘Who wants to play with me today?’

(Newman, 2009a: n.p.). On the recto, responding to the

child’s question the text reads ‘“I do!” Daddy and Papa say’

(Newman, 2009a: n.p.). The following eighteen pages are full

of brightly coloured watercolour illustrations and rhyming

couplets across each double page spread. Daddy, Papa and

child spend the whole day together, doing things around the

house, getting creative and going outdoors—anything from

painting to baking to playing in the park. This board book

ends with both fathers utterly exhausted, their young

toddler tucking them in ‘goodnight’ on the sofa. The

picturebooks not only provide entertaining rhymes for the

child reader but provide a narrative which reflects their

own life, without the necessity to overtly normalise or

educate about LGBT families.

52

What Newman and Thompson’s board books provide so

elegantly are LGBT family narratives which are not concerned

with reaching an audience beyond their family of characters.

At their core, Mommy, Mama, and Me and Daddy, Papa, and Me are

picturebooks for the LGBT family as the characters and the

implied audience are the children of families with two

father or two mothers (Newman, 2009a, 2009b: n.p.). To this

end, neither board book provides explanation of the family

structure, how the parents and child became a family, or

address them as a ‘different’ family grouping. Rather, the

narratives take as their basis that the family just is a

family, starting each book with the child narrating the

different actions they do each day with their respective

parents. The fact that each child has two mothers or two

fathers, instead of a heteronormative ‘ideal’ family, only

becomes an ‘issue’ to be addressed outside of the

picturebooks. In other words, the discussion of ‘different’

families (like that found within the text of Heather has Two

Mommies) only takes place in the ‘real’ world where LGBT

families are not always accepted as a ‘legitimate’ family.

53

Thus, what picturebooks about and for LGBT families are

able to do then is provide children the opportunity to

witness their own family or others’ family structure within

a visual and textual narrative. If the child has LGBT family

members, they will see their own family lives reflected for

them. If the child does not have LGBT family members, they

can be introduced to a family grouping other than their own.

Some picturebooks, like Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin, Heather has

Two Mommies, Daddy’s Roommate and Uncle Bobby’s Wedding, aim to

educate their implied readership about LGBT families,

driving home an accepting and loving view of those families.

Other picturebooks, like Newman’s board books, Out for Our

Children’s picturebooks and Patricia Polacco’s recent In Our

Mothers’ House (2009), create visual and textual narratives

which include families with two mothers or two fathers,

providing picturebooks for their implied readership of LGBT

families. In addition, the latter group of picturebooks does

not contain explicit ideologies about accepting ‘different’

kinds of families; instead, the child reader themselves can

determine if and when a family actually is ‘different’ at

54

all. Picturebooks about and for LGBT families may contain

traces of ‘the fantasy of family,’ and yet willingly

construct a family unit which transcends the confines of the

‘ideal’ family of ‘mother, father and offspring’ (Thiel,

2008: 157). The construction of such narratives about and

for LGBT families require the transference of ideologies to

the implied reader, with the intention that the real reader

will receive some of those ideologies as well. Picturebooks

in particular, with their ability to communicate visually

and textually, allow the real child reader to understand the

social complexity of these narratives on their own time and

at their own level. Most importantly, any child can open one

of these LGBT picturebooks and read about a family built on

love and caring.

55

Chapter 3

Queer Love Stories

Why do some women prefer to fall in love with

other women… and some men with other men?

- Babette Cole, Mummy Never Told Me (2004)

Queerness works to expand what we think is

possible and acceptable.

(Rabinowitz, 2006: 19)

In the delightful mixed media picturebook King & King (2002)

by Linda de Haan and Stern Nijland, the old queen declares

that Prince Bertie1, her son, will marry by the end of the

summer and, with a few phone calls, the princesses are

lining up at the front gates to be seen the next morning. To

each princess the prince listens and observes but with none

is he taken—that is, until Princess Madeleine arrives with

1 The reader does not actually know Prince Bertie’s name until the sequel, King & King & Family. He is only known as “the prince” in King & King, but to aid in clarity and ease I have chosen to use his name in the discussion of both of the texts.

56

her brother, Prince Lee. The narrator informs the reader on

the next recto: ‘It was love at first sight’ (de Haan, 20).

The following colourful, double page spread is full of the

princes’ love for each other: Prince Bertie (verso) and

Prince Lee (recto) stand opposite each other, arms open,

rosy cheeked and mouths in full smile (de Haan, 21-22). Suns

and hearts encircle their heads, butterflies and hearts

flutter over their stomachs and an arch of stamped and cut-

out hearts, flowers and stars form between them. The queen

looks on from behind the prince and Princess Madeleine

giggles in delight behind her brother as each prince

exclaims, “What a wonderful prince!” (de Haan, 21-22). The

princes are married, become kings, and the picturebook ends

with the fairy tale phrase “And everyone lives happily ever

after” (de Haan, 28). A familiar final line from fairy

tales, de Haan and Nijland’s ending adds a queer twist as

everyone lives happily ever after: the two kings together;

the princess from Greenland and prince’s page are in love;

and the queen has some time to herself. This “happily ever

after” gains a child addition in the picturebook’s sequel,

57

King & King & Family (2004), where a little girl from the jungle

hides in their honeymoon suitcase and becomes their adopted

daughter, Princess Daisy.

A happy marriage, a happy family—happily ever after. In

the previous chapter, I discussed the ways in which LGBT

families are constructed within picturebook texts, making an

ideological distinction between picturebooks about LGBT

families and picturebooks for LGBT families. What

distinguishes these picturebook families as LGBT, however,

is the presence of (adult) same-sex couples: the LGBT

parents, guardians or uncles of the young protagonists. A

few of the narratives, like Kate and Jane’s flashback story

in Heather has Two Mommies, provide some context for the

beginning for their romantic partnerships. In other

narratives, the parents, guardians or uncles appear as a

pre-formed couple. Additionally, the LGBT couple is

intrinsically tied to the children, their construction as a

‘family’ hinging on the children’s presence and

participation. In King & King, on the other hand, de Haan and

Nijland’s fairytale narrative allows room for the

58

construction of the kings as a couple—well before they adopt

a child and are constructed as a ‘family’ in King & King &

Family. Even before Prince Bertie and Prince Lee marry as a

royal couple, the reader witnesses the two princes fall in love

with each other. But how do we know the two princes are in

love? How is their love story constructed differently from

the later construction of their marriage and family?

The visual and textual narrative contains explicit and

implicit codes of how the princes ‘fall in love.’ Textually,

just before the princes’ themselves declare their love for

one another, the narrator simply states: ‘It was love at

first sight’ (de Haan, 2002: n.p.). Afterward, the59

From King & King by Linda de Haan and Stern Nijland.

resolution depicts the marriage of the princes and, in the

sequel, the couple adopts a child. With our inherited

cultural knowledge, the implied author expects that readers

will understand that King Bertie and King Lee must be in

love because they get married and have a family. Still, the

picturebook texts contain further clues, particularly

visual, that communicate that two people have just fallen in

love. To demonstrate how adults fall in love in picturebooks

for children, I will be looking closely at the same-sex

relationships within two picturebooks: Queen Munch and Queen

Nibble (2002) written by Carol Ann Duffy and illustrated by

Lydia Monks; and Hello, Sailor (2003) illustrated by Ingrid

Godon and written by André Sollie. For each of these texts,

a queer reading will be applied, working, as Rebecca

Rabinowitz argues, to expand what we believe to be

‘acceptable and possible’ in love stories (Rabinowitz, 2006:

19). In doing so, I will be examining how these two

picturebooks ‘trouble’ the construction of love and

friendship in narratives for children without overt

60

didacticism, instead leaving the interpretations of the

same-sex relationships up to the implied readers.

In consideration of how to apply a queer reading to a

picturebook text, I will be drawing largely from a few key

texts in queer theory and children’s literature. For

understanding the application of queer theory to children’s

literature, I will look to Rabinowitz’s article ‘Messy New

Freedoms: Queer Theory and Children’s Literature.’ For her

analysis of children’s literature ranging from picturebooks

to junior fiction, Rabinowitz draws considerably from an

influential queer theorist Eve Kofsky Sedgwick. Providing an

explanation of queer theory, Rabinowitz states: ‘Queer

theory shows sex, gender, and sexuality to be frequently

fluid and dynamic….Queerness works to expand what we think is possible

and acceptable’ (Rabinowitz, 2006:19, emphasis mine). ‘Fluid

and dynamic,’ a queer reading allows the reader the

opportunity to consider what parts of the story transcends

heteronormativity, and which do not. Quoting Eve Kofsky

Sedgwick on gender performance, Rabinowitz argues that most

books are ‘kinda subversive, kinda hegemonic’ (Sedgwick qtd.

61

in Rabinowitz, 2006: 25); she adds, ‘queerness can be found

all over’ (Rabinowitz, 2006: 25). In her book Gender Trouble,

however, Judith Butler’s theory of the compulsory order of

sex/gender/desire (Butler, 1991: 9-11) demands a stricter

‘troubling’ of texts. As discussed in my introduction,

Butler’s work calls into question the social construction of

our identities by ‘troubling’ how we view the relationships

between sex, gender and sexuality. Like the troubling

‘female “object,”’ I believe in the possibility of a

picturebook that ‘inexplicably returns the glance, reverses

the gaze, and contests the place and authority of the

masculine [and I would add, heteronormative] position’

(Butler, 1990: xxvii-xxviii). While I will return to the

notion of ‘the gaze’ during my analysis of Hello, Sailor, the

overall discussion of these queer picturebooks will involve

troubling the ‘categories’ of sex/gender/desire, friendship

and romance, and children’s literature and love stories.

With this perspective of queer theory in mind, Duffy

and Monks’ Queen Munch and Queen Nibble offers a visual and

textual narrative of a close friendship—and arguably

62

romantic love—between two queens, Queen Munch and Queen

Nibble. The story opens with Queen Munch, ‘big with cheeks

as red as tomato ketchup. She had shining ginger hair which

she wore in two plump pigtails like strings of Best

Sausages. Her eyes were the colour of chutney and her laugh

was as loud as the moo of a cow on its way to be milked’

(Duffy, 2002: n.p.). Every Saturday morning, a crowd of her

subjects gather for the ‘The Munching of the Breakfast;’

after one such Saturday’s meal, Queen Munch decides to

invite Queen Nibble for a friendly visit (Duffy, 2002:

n.p.). By contrast, Queen Nibble ‘was as tall and slender

and pale as a stick of celery….She wore her fine fair hair

up in a tidy bundle the size of a white bread roll. A simple

pearl tiara, like a row of tiny pickled onions, sat on her

head’ (Duffy, 2002: 15). From the first introductions, the

queens appear to compliment and contradict each other. As

the narrative continues, however, their contrasts begin to

dissipate following Queen Nibble’s arrival at Munch Palace

as their relationship blossoms.

63

In the first trial of

their friendship, it begins

to rain as the two queens

are heading out for a walk.

At the first drop, Queen

Nibble begins to make

jewellery from the rain;

Queen Munch hates the rain,

but she stops in her tracks

stunned by Queen Nibble’s

special talent. The illustrations depict the latter queen

finishing a bracelet while the larger queen stares at her in

awe. Meanwhile, the text reads: ‘The two queens faced each

other in the soft rain and Queen Munch held out her plump

pink wrist for Queen Nibble to fasten the bracelet around

it. Suddenly Queen Munch didn’t want to go to her bed any

more. Yes, it was raining—BUT SHE DIDN’T REALLY CARE!’

(Duffy, 2002: n.p.). Already in the short time they have

known each other, the two queens have made a considerable

impression on one another and their friendship begins. In

64

return for teaching her how to make jewellery from the rain,

Queen Munch sets up a game of ‘Find the Fruit on the Frock.’

In this game, Queen Nibble must agree to find the only real

fruit on Queen Munch’s dress and to eat it; if she finds it,

she will have a full appetite for forever forward (Duffy,

2002: n.p.). When Queen Nibble chooses the correct

strawberry, the sugary pink background of the double page

spread of the queen licking her lips radiates the sweetness

of love and affection. A great feast follows the climax of

the story and the narrator

continues on to describe

how the queens visit each others’ ‘queendom’ for six months

of every year. During these times, they are seen together

throughout the day and evening, play Snap on the balcony and

jumping on the bed—a complementary pair, but without the

‘happily ever after’ (Duffy, 2002: n.p.).2

2 The picturebook actually ends with a direct address to the reader: ‘Now…what would you like for breakfast in the morning?’ (Duffy, 2002: n.p.). While I would argue that the implied reader is an independent child reader, this final line of the picturebook troubles that implied reader definition: Has an adult been reading this to a child? Is an adult reading this to another adult? Or, is it consistent and Duffy is merely speaking directly, for the first time, to her implied child audience?

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From Queen Munch and Queen Nibble by Carol Ann Duffy and Lydia Monks.

The omission of the classic fairy tale ending notable

in the resolution of Queen Munch and Queen Nibble marks a

dramatic shift away from the pattern of King & King as well as

from fairy tale functions. As Vladimir Propp argues, there

are thirty-one functions working in fairy tales with the

last function stated as ‘31. The hero is married and ascends

the throne (wedding)’ (Propp, 1999: 382-387). King & King

troubles the sex/gender/desire compulsory order of this

conventional function to a degree as Propp’s sought after

for princess ends up being a prince instead; and yet, there

is a wedding and the hero, with his true love prince, does

ascend the throne to become King Bertie. Duffy and Monks’

queens, on the other hand, disturb the fairy tale function

by providing neither a wedding nor ascension to the crown.

By the resolution of the story, Queen Munch and Queen Nibble

simply choose dual shared accommodation for some indefinite

and ongoing period of time (even as their two servants—

Goodnurse Scrubadub, female, and the Important Reader, male—

have (also) fallen in love and exchanged engagement rings).

While not a couple through a ceremony, the queens’ decision

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to cohabitate throughout the year can be read as evidence

for the basis of a same-sex relationship. Indeed, many

couples in LGBT family picturebook authors utilize

cohabitation in order to communicate the couple’s committed

status, for example in Heather has Two Mommies, Daddy’s

Roommate, and My Two Uncles.

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Furthermore, Queen

Munch and Queen Nibble

trouble the line between

love and friendship as

discreet categories. While

Duffy and Monks do not

provide the explicit

textual explanation of

‘love at first sight,’

comparing a double page

spread from the climax of “Find the Fruit of the Frock” with

a double page spread in King & King lends evidence to the

argument that the queens are, in fact, in love as well. As

described previously, the scene where Prince Bertie and

Prince Lee fall in love follows directly after seeing each

other for the first time and all around them butterflies and

hearts are swirling as the princes exclaim “What a wonderful

prince!” (de Haan, 2002: n.p.). Viewing Queen Nibble’s

salience in the foreground on the recto of a double page

spread, licking the strawberry juice from her lips as a drop

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one another as two women. Even though I believe the implied

reader for this picturebook is an independent child reader,

there are some unmistakeable sexual innuendos within the

visual and textual narrative for the knowledgeable adult

reader. Given that the friendship and love between the

protagonists takes place between two women, there is a

strong a reference to cunnilingus within the picturebook.

Firstly, Queen Munch’s name suggests related colloquial

definitions of ‘munching,’ referring to the vagina, a group

of lesbians or the act of cunnilingus (Urban Dictionary:

‘munch;’ ‘munching’). Secondly, Duffy’s description of Queen

Nibble eating the real strawberry can be read sexually. The

description and depiction of Queen Nibble’s mouth filling

and overflowing with ‘a pink tingling juice’ while thinking

of her ‘best friend’ is not unlike descriptions of

cunnilingus found in lesbian fiction3 and erotica. That a

friendship exists between Queen Munch and Queen Nibble is

3 For example, Ruthann Robson’s collection of short stories, Cecile (1991), provides a similarly savoury description: ‘...but Cecile answers, “This does,” while her tongue separates myself from my myself. Cecile finds my wettest spot and laps it with her tongue. Then she turns, leans and half-straddles me for a deep, long kiss. Her mouth tastes like a midnight sea’ (Robson, 1991: 61).

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part of the story itself; to acknowledge the sexual

connotations of such a relationship queers the reading of

the love between the two queens.

The combination of the deepening relationship between

the queens along with the sexual undertones of the

picturebook produce for me a queer reading that both

troubles the classic fairy tale functions as well as the

portrayal of same-sex relationships—gay, lesbian, straight;

friendly and romantic—within picturebooks for children. This

picturebook is particularly compelling because its narrative

is written for an independent implied reader that allows

them to take away a strong message of love and friendship

between two women, with or without the sexual connotations.

Furthermore, the language, illustrations, and lessons in

friendship provide a narrative which children can understand

without adult guidance. Overall, the sweet (in a picturebook

obsessed with food) and subversive storytelling in Queen

Munch and Queen Nibble does not question or attempt to justify

its characters’ relationships, but rather playfully allows

them to unfold as a genuine, real-life relationship could.

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Indeed, the subtle, yet substantiated development of a

same-sex relationship between two characters recurs within

Ingrid Godon and André Sollie’s Hello, Sailor (2003) as Matt and

Sailor’s relationship occurs without question or

justification. Kate Kellaway’s review of the picturebook in

The Observer speaks to this ideological quality of the

narrative:

It is a beautiful book. Ingrid Godon's melancholypictures are filled with seagulls, lighthouses and sanddunes. You can almost smell the sea salt. And there areno children in it. There is no family. There is no sex.It is about yearning. And it makes - just as it should- the love between two men as natural and deep as anyother (2003).

So resounding was her statement, publishers Macmillan

Children’s Books quoted Kellaway’s review on the cover of

the paperback edition, shortened to emphasise that ‘the love

between two men as natural and deep as any other.’ While her

description of the picturebook does not specifically detail

how she knows they are in love, there are a few indications

from her description of their love as ‘natural’ and ‘deep.’

Drawing again from Butler’s theory of the compulsory

order of sex/gender/desire to say that the ‘love’ between

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Matt and Sailor is ‘natural’ can be disputed. To argue that

any love is natural, regardless of sex or gender, concerns

Butler as she questions the ‘scientific’ category of sex as

not natural, but potentially socially constructed. Moreover,

she argues that all love (read: desire) is a result of an

imposed compulsory order dependent on the social categories

of sex and gender (Butler, 1999: 10-11). With this in mind,

not much about Matt and Sailor’s relationship (or any other

for that matter) can be read as ‘natural.’ In her statement,

Kellaway hopes to further validate Matt and Sailor’s

relationship ‘just as...natural and deep as any other,’ and

further support real-life same-sex relationships. However,

this line of argument potentially continues the

interpretation that same-sex relationships are still

‘other,’ in need of acceptance in our (heteronormative)

culture. Labelling same-sex relationships as ‘natural’ is a

theoretical slippery slope and yet Kellaway’s review still

resonates in its description of their relationship as

‘deep.’ A queer reading of Hello, Sailor thus is more about the

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depth of the relationship than about any justification of

its naturalness.

The depth of Matt and Sailor’s relationship comes to

light in comparison of character development and narrative

with King & King. For one instance, the amount of space given

to their developing relationships differs greatly. King

Bertie and King Lee’s love story takes place over the span

of twelve pages and ten sentences in the picturebook: from

the moment King Lee is announced to the celebration of their

wedding, completing with a final page of the two kings

kissing. In contrast, Matt and Sailor’s relationship began

well before the picturebook opens. The tone of their

relationship and Matt’s character—living in the lighthouse,

watching for Sailor’s return, interacting with his friends

and seagull in his close-knit community—are developed over

the first fourteen pages through considerable text and

gentle illustrations. Over the next six pages, Sailor

arrives late in the evening of Matt’s birthday and the

reader witnesses as the ‘two friends’ are reunited and enjoy

each other’s company around the table, leaving just before

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dawn to sail around the world. In this way, King Bertie and

King Lee’s love story occupies the final third of the

picturebook while the build

up for Matt and Sailor’s

relationship occupies the

entire picturebook, with the

exception of the final four

pages.

In addition, while the

Kings’ love is encapsulated

in the phrase ‘What a

wonderful prince!’ the

textual narrative provides

Matt and Sailor with more

room and depth for their first meeting after such a length

of time apart:

The man went inside the lighthouse and climbed thesteep spiral staircase. His heart was pounding.

“Matt?” he called again. Still no reply. He openedthe door quickly.

“Sailor!” Matt gasped. “You’ve come back!” Hecouldn’t believe his eyes. “Hello, Sailor.”

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From Hello, Sailor by Ingrid Godon and André Sollie.

Sailor laughed. “Did you think I’d forgotten you?I thought we were going to sail round the worldtogether.”

“Yes,” cried Matt. “I’ve been waiting for you!”The two friends didn’t know whether to laugh or

cry. They turned round in a circle, to get a betterlook at one another. It was almost as if they weredancing.

Sailor was back!They sat outside beneath the stars and ate

leftover cake and drank some rum. Sailor told Mattstories about the sea and the faraway countries he hadvisited, and about how they were going to sail roundthe world together (Godon, 2003: 17-18).

Even as the text itself refers to Matt and Sailor as ‘two

friends,’ the deep relationship between the men is clear and

the double page sread resonates with the ‘queerness’

Rabinowitz argues can be found all over (Rabinowitz, 2006:

25). The text itself on this double page spread describes

anticipation, excitement, joy and connection between the two

men which provide the foundation of the reader’s conception

of their romantic relationship. Still, the interaction of

the illustrations and text throughout the picturebook build

the queer interpretation of the narrative.

From the first image of Matt on the front cover to the

description of his job as a lighthouse keeper, Matt is

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depicted as forlorn lover waiting for his Sailor to return.

The front cover image shows Matt on the upper deck of the

lighthouse with his hair windswept to one side, his elbow

resting on the railing, and his hand cupping his chin,

looking out at the horizon with a seagull perched next to

him. The reader might suspect Matt is looking out at them,

but the text inside reveals that he is actually looking for

someone very specific: ‘He had to keep a lookout over the

sea. But mostly Matt kept a lookout for Sailor’ (Godon,

2002: n.p.). Even as two of his friends, Rose and Felix,

doubt that Sailor will return, Matt is ever vigilant in his

watch and mentions him frequently throughout the pages. The

repetition and longing of Sailor’s name impresses upon the

implied reader that Sailor plays a significant role in

Matt’s life, someone very dear to him. Similarly, the reader

discovers, Sailor’s focus upon arriving back to the

lighthouse is to find Matt as soon as he can, even if it

means sneaking into the lighthouse to find him. Thus, even

before the two men sail off together for an adventure around

the world, the implied reader is provided with enough clues

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to imagine a romantic relationship between Matt and Sailor.

Then the two men do set off before dawn for their sailing

adventure, the implied reader understands that they are

taking the next step in their relationship together. While

neither marriage nor typical co-habitation resolves the

story, a commitment has still been made between the two men,

in love.

Overall, the narrative of Hello, Sailor conveys its

messages subtly and without overt didacticism. The

picturebook makes a statement by being about a love story

between two men, but does not overtly attempt to normalise

same-sex relationships. Instead, the picturebook text offers

moments which ‘expand what we think is possible and

acceptable’ (Rabinowitz, 2006: 61). One such moment is the

illustration that accompanies the text previously quoted,

where Sailor returns and finds Matt at the top of the

lighthouse. Matt, in the background looking out at sea, does

not know Sailor is there; Sailor, in the foreground, has

just opened the door quietly, but instead of looking at

Matt, looks out at the reader instead. Quoting Butler, I

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argued earlier for a picturebook that ‘inexplicably returns

the glance, reverses the gaze, and contests the place and

authority’ of the heteronormative position (1999: xxvii-

xxviii)—and this is one such moment. As Sailor looks out at

the reader in this illustration, he inexplicably returns the

glance and reverses the gaze back upon ourselves, troubling

and questioning the implied reader’s heteronormative

assumptions about relationships, love, and romance. The

illustration only captures the possibility of Matt and Sailor’s

relationship, and Sailor’s returned glance challenges the

implied reader to wonder what the nature of that

relationship might be. Even as the text provides the

detailed emotions and outcome of the scene, the

interpretation of Matt and Sailor’s romantic relationship

still remains with the implied reader.

Still, who is the implied reader for Hello, Sailor?

Returning to Kellaway’s review of the picturebook, she

writes:

When I read the book to my boys (four and six), theyadmired the lighthouse greatly. But not an eyebrow nora question was raised about anything else. As an

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attempt to educate children about homosexual love byawakening discussion, it is a failure. And, in the end,I found myself wondering whether, although it makes alovely book for children, its natural audience wasn'tan adult one? (2003).

For Kellaway, her sons’ non-reaction to the seemingly

obvious gay love story in Hello, Sailor was enough to confirm

for her that the implied audience for this text was not in

fact children, but adults. She is later clear that while the

publishers imagine it is a story only for gay adults, she

believes it is a love story that everyone (read: gay and

straight) to enjoy. That the picturebook is for adults of

all sexualities, I do agree with Kellaway. However, I also

disagree that the picturebook does not include children in

its implied readership. Kellaway validly cites her sons’

lack of questioning about homosexuality after reading the

picturebook as evidence for her claim and yet I argue that

Hello, Sailor opens up the possibilities for children to ask

questions about homosexuality, love or longingly in the way

that many picturebooks allow children to ask questions about

the world around them. The key quality of the quietness of

Godon and Sollie’s picturebook is that it allows children

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and adults the space to interpret the narrative for

themselves and trouble their preconceptions of relationship—

when they take notice.

Allowing readers to form interpretations and questions

for themselves is at the core of why picturebooks like Queen

Munch and Queen Nibble (2002) and Hello, Sailor (2003) are so

important to have on our children’s bookshelves. These

picturebooks do not directly or explicitly address the

‘issue’ or ‘controversial topic’ of same-sex relationships

between loving men and women, but rather allow the reader to

make discoveries and seek answers on their own time and with

their own agendas. When the narrator in Babette Cole’s

Mummy Never Told Me (2004) asks: ‘Why do some women prefer to

fall in love with other women…and some men with other men?’

(2004: n.p.), the narrator portends to speak for the child at

a time when a child may not be thinking that question.4 The

attempts to explicitly ‘teach’ a child about what they

‘should’ accept and what exists in the real world have a

4 Not to mention Cole’s question revealing its own underlying bias towards heteronormativity through the prepositional phrase ‘prefer to’ (2003: n.p.).

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complicated relationship with the history of children’s

literature as vessels for morality and education. And yet,

picturebooks, like queerness, work to expand what children

know and believe to be possible and acceptable, and

narratives like Queen Munch and Queen Nibble and Hello, Sailor are

changing the way queer stories can be told.

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Chapter 4

The Queer Child

“No,” said Bailey, “but they do show

us OURSELVES.”

(Ewert, 2008: n.p.)

As I have discussed thus far, picturebooks published in the

UK and the US about and for the LGBT community have evolved

over the last thirty years. Of those picturebooks, many

feature a child protagonist whose relationship with a same-

sex couple is at the centre of the narrative. There are not,

however, many picturebooks which feature a queer child

protagonist, and their relationship to those around them. To

use the word ‘queer’ to describe a child can be slippery as

discussions surrounding children and sexuality remain taboo.

Melynda Huskey writes in her article ‘Queering the Picture

Book’ that picturebooks about ‘gay or protogay

children...would open too clear a route to the forbidden

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realm of desire’ (2002: 68), desire being the link between

queer and controversy. And yet, it is desire that I do not

want to brush aside in my discussion of the queer child in

picturebooks. To be sure, the small selection of

picturebooks I have found do steer clear of sexual desire;

however, desire for something else still exists: a word in

The Boy Who Cried Fabulous (2004) by Lesléa Newman and Peter

Ferguson, revenge in My Brother Bernadette (2001) by Jacqueline

Wilson and David Roberts, friendship in Chester’s Way (1989) by

Kevin Henkes, or the dresses of someone’s dreams in 10,000

Dresses (2008) by Marcus Ewert and Rex Ray. Unlike the

majority of LGBT family picturebooks, these picturebooks do

not necessarily address LGBT issues, and yet they are queer

as they ‘trouble’ the performance of gender and the

subsequent assumption of a character’s desire. As Huskey

writes, ‘There’s no shortage of queer picture books if

you’re looking in the right places, or with the right eyes.

For while foregrounding homosexuality, whether deliberately

or in flight, robs the picture book of its queerness,

seeking it where it “isn’t” establishes it most fully’

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(Huskey, 2002: 68). The Boy Who Cried Fabulous, My Brother

Bernadette, and Chester’s Way are all examples of ‘looking in

the right places’ and establishing a queer child protagonist

where the narrative ignores its use of gay stereotypes of

gender performance in creating its queer characters. 10,000

Dresses, additionally, sets a precedent in creating a new

kind of queer picturebook where the protagonist, Bailey,

struggles with her5 gender and her desire in a narrative

which does address queer and transgender issues, and yet

doesn’t. I will argue that while queerness can be found in

multiple picturebooks, 10,000 Dresses is exemplary as it

elegantly troubles and calls into question the construction

of the compulsory order of sex/gender/desire while providing

a hero who refuses to be anybody but herself.

Of queerness in picturebooks, Huskey affirms that to

find queerness is simply a matter of ‘looking in the right

places, or with the right eyes’ (2002: 68). Rebecca

Rabinowitz later echoed this statement in her essay ‘Messy

5 Throughout my discussion of Bailey, I have chosen overall to honour the narrator’s use of female pronouns in writing about Bailey. In timeswhere I want to suggest a greater ambiguity, however, I will simply refer to the picturebook’s protagonist as Bailey.

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New Freedoms: Queer Theory and Children’s Literature,’

writing that ‘queerness can be found all over’ (2006: 25).

What queerness looks like though often reads as a troubling

of an identity category, such as sex, gender or sexuality.

For example, Rabinowitz writes of gender and queer theory in

literature:

‘Queer theory’s project is to offer a new language inwhich gender’s fluctuations, fluidity, and gaps aredescribed as powerfully ambiguous and useful rather thansimply ironic or unusual. Queer theory reads genderincoherency or inconsistency as natural and inevitable.This opens up the world of gender to include perhaps asmany different genders as there are people. Inliterature, there are as many gender categories as thereare characters. Or, because of the fluidity and shiftingthrough time, as many genders as there are moments’(2006: 22).

While I am hesitant to agree that anything in reference to

gender is ‘natural,’ Rabinowitz captures the essence of what

a queer reading attempts to achieve when looking at a text.

By queering a reading of a text, the ‘stable’ categories of

sex, gender and sexuality become fluid and inconsistent. In

doing so, picturebooks which may have overt lessons in, say,

diction or bullying equally read as queer texts because

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their child protagonists refuse to embody a static gender of

‘masculine’ or ‘feminine.’

The Boy Who Cried Fabulous by Lesléa Newman and Peter

Ferguson is, well, a fabulous example of such a queer text.

Illustrated in muted primary colours, the visual narrative

is set in 1950s Americana, complete with apple pie, diners

and pill box hats. The picturebook’s protagonist Roger is a

boy about nine or ten years old who wears collared shirts,

sweater vests and bow ties. Roger sees everything around him

as ‘fabulous,’ but his wandering eyes often make him late

for class. As the picturebook opens, his mother reminds him

not to be tardy: ‘When Roger started out for school, his

mother set a simple rule. She said, “Now Roger, you got

straight—straight to class, and don’t be late.” Roger tried

hard to obey, he knew that he should not delay’ (Newman,

2004: n.p.). Given that the narrator provides that Roger is

a boy, a reader might expect Roger to be distracted by

stereotypical ‘boy’ things, sports or the outdoors for

example. Instead, Roger is distracted by clothing, fashion,

shoes and food, all stereotypical associations with gay male

86

culture. Furthermore, ‘fabulous’ is his favourite adjective

for everything he sees, a word heavily associated with the

LGBT community and the gay male community in particular

(Urban Dictionary: ‘fabulous’).

Roger, of course, gets into trouble for his tardiness,

reprimanded the following day by both parents before a

family outing into town:

‘The next day Mom said, “Roger dear, there’s one word wedon’t want to hear.” “Now son,” said Dad,” listen to us. We’re talking aboutfabulous...” (Newman, 2004: n.p.)

By now, the implied reader might wonder if there is a dual

meaning in Dad’s reminder: a homophobic fear that his son,

Roger, is growing up to be gay because he overuses the word

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From The Boy Who Cried Fabulous by Lesléa Newman and Peter Ferguson.

‘fabulous.’ Roger instead comes up with multiple words to

describe everything he sees, avoiding the word fabulous

until the very end: ‘What a luscious smell in the

scrumptious air. What a stunning day for a charming fair.

What a thrilling show, what a brilliant clown. What a

magnificent street, what a fabulous town!’ (Newman, 2004:

n.p.). While Roger stops in his tracks after uttering the

‘f-word’ his parents announce him ‘the world’s most fabulous

son!’ (Newman, 2004: n.p.). In the end, what appears to be a

moral narrative about varying a child’s diction, The Boy Who

Cried Fabulous can also be read as a queer picturebook text for

accepting a child’s performed gender, whether it is

flamboyant, fruity or fabulous.

Like Newman and Ferguson’s title, My Brother Bernadette by

Jacqueline Wilson and David Roberts catches the queer eye

for a second look as it juxtaposes the male title ‘brother’

with the female name ‘Bernadette.’ A picturebook about

bullying, Bernard and his older sister Sara go to a summer

project where Bernard quickly becomes a focal point for

harassment. A quintessential homophobic bully, Big Dan

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bestows Bernard’s new female name upon him after he crashes

into his model car: ‘Poor little Bernard! he said,

mimicking. ‘You stupid sissy little baby. You’re like a girl

with all that long hair. Bernadette, more like. Yeah. That’s

your new name. Bernadette’ (Wilson, 2001: 14). Illustrated

in ink and watercolour, Bernard wears a plaid shirt, sweater

vest and red pointy shoes and switches to clothes design

class after his run-in with Big Dan. It is in this class

where Bernard improves his sewing, begins to earn respect

for his skills, and reclaims his name as just ‘Bernard.’

Where Bernard is depicted as camp, his sister Sara is a

tom-boy, both of them pushing the gender boundaries of what

is ‘acceptable.’ The first definition for ‘camp’ on the

Urban Dictionary relates to an ‘effeminate way of being gay.

One can be camp without being gay’ (Urban Dictionary:

‘camp’). While the definition is a casual and social

understanding of the term ‘camp,’ it is nonetheless helpful

in understanding the cultural knowledge a reader may bring

to such a text. Thus, grasping the gay, camp stereotypes

built into Bernard’s character and the reality of homophobic

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bully in schools, a queer reading of My Brother Bernadette

begins to get at the fluidity of Bernard and Sara’s gender,

without the need to question their sexuality. Unfortunately,

the un-queer resolution to the picturebook employs the same

homophobic bullying techniques first used by Big Dan against

Bernard. In the end, Bernard sews a costume jacket for Big

Dan which is decorated with pink daises and reads ‘Daisy

Dan’ across the back (Wilson, 2001: 44-46). Where the

picturebook makes gains by having Bernard holding his ground

that he is who is as Bernard (i.e. an effeminate boy), the

resolution of turning ‘Big Dan’ into ‘Daisy Dan’ promotes

revenge and a reinforcement of the gender binary of feminine

and masculine.

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In the anthropomorphised Chester’s Way by Kevin Henkes,

the two male mice, Chester and Wilson, are depicted in

similar gay fashion to Roger and Bernard and also experience

harassment that can be interpreted as homophobic bullying.

Chester and Wilson are best friends who like all the same

things and do everything together. Out on a bike ride one

day, the two mice are surrounded by three other mice who

shout ‘personal remarks’ at them (Henkes, 1989: n.p.).

Critiquing this scene for its ‘curiously indirect language,’

Huskey writes:

Wilson and Chester, astride bicycles with handlebarstreamers, banners and training wheels, look helplesslyat each other. Three larger mice, on unornamented bikes,surround them, pointing and leering. Interestingly, theyare barefoot, wearing shorts and teeshirts. Wilson andChester, shod in laceup oxfords, wear colorful shorts(one striped, one polkadotted), shirts, and cardigans.Their sunglasses are pushed up onto their foreheads. The

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From Chester’s Way by Kevin Henkes.

contrast is complete. The word “faggot” is no lesspresent in this picture for being elided by the careful“personal remarks” (2002: 70).

Supporting her argument that queerness is established ‘where

it “isn’t,”’ Huskey furthers her case as she describes how

Chester and Wilson are ‘saved’ by the cat-mask-wearing,

squirt-gun-wheeling Lilly, who becomes the third to their

trio of mice friends. Of the sole female mouse, Huskey

writes ‘Lilly is, in fact, Chester and Wilson’s Eve

Sedgwick, her flamboyant performative style the perfect foil

for their understatement’ (2002: 71). For her, the three

mice’s performance of a human gender—male, female, queer—is

‘encoded in the small details of character and image’ and

draws attention to the ‘performative’ qualities of gender

(Huskey, 2002: 71).

In some ways it is easier to see gender as a

performance when human gender characteristics are placed

upon an animal, a mouse: how do we know Chester and Wilson

are (effeminate) males if not for the ways in which they

perform their given gender through their clothing, actions

and activities. Indeed, I have read Roger and Bernard as

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queer because of their performance as effeminate males

through their clothing, diction, interests and actions.

These four characters are examples of reading queerness ‘in

the right places, or with the right eyes,’ establishing it

most fully where it ‘isn’t’ (Huskey, 2002: 68). In Marcus

Ewert and Rex Ray’s 10,000 Dresses, however, a further, more

in-depth queer reading can be made that goes beyond only

troubling the performance of gender. The child protagonist

Bailey calls into question not just the performance of

gender but the whole compulsory order of sex/gender/desire.

Known to be born as a ‘boy,’ Bailey confronts her family as

she desires to make and

wear the dresses from her

dreams, eventually finding

a way to truly reflect who

she really is.

When the reader first

meets Bailey, she is asleep

and dreaming of 10,000

dresses on a row of stairs

93From 10,000 Dresses by Marcus Ewert and Rex Ray.

waiting for her (Ewert, 2008: n.p.). In her initial dream,

Bailey tries on the first dress and the narrator lets the

reader into Bailey’s mind and body: ‘With all her heart,

Bailey loved the dress made of crystals that flashed

rainbows in the sun’ (Ewert, 2008: n.p.). This dream is the

first of three dreams Bailey has of the dresses: the second

is a dress made of lilies, roses, and honeysuckles; and the

third dress is made of windows looking onto the great

monuments of the world (Ewert, 2008: n.p.). Each morning

when she wakes she approaches another family member to ask

for their help in attaining or making the inspired dress,

but at each interaction she receives a similar refusal:

‘You’re a boy. Boys don’t wear dresses!’ To which Bailey

responds, ‘But…I don’t feel like a boy’ (Ewert, 2008: n.p.,

emphasis original).

Through these interactions, the crux of the story thus

becomes evident: Bailey thinks herself to be female: the

narrator refers to Bailey with feminine pronouns; she dreams

of dresses, a symbol of femininity; and she objects to

feeling ‘like a boy.’ Additionally, her family tells her

94

that she is a boy and thus must act like a boy (which does

not include wearing dresses). As a result of her third

interaction with a family member, her brother, Bailey runs

down the road where she finds an older girl, Laurel. Laurel

is attempting to make a dress for herself but conveniently

lacks design ideas. Bailey tells Laurel of the window dress

from her dream and together they make a similar design out

of old mirrors. Laurel is at first disappointed that the

dresses are not made of windows, but Bailey reassures her

that their dresses are even better as the picturebooks

resolves:

“These dresses don’t show us the Great Wall of China, orthe Pyramids,” said Laurel.“No,” said Bailey, “but they do show us OURSELVES.”“You’re the coolest girl I’ve ever met, Bailey!” saidLaurel. “Hey, do you think you can dream up any MOREdresses?”Bailey grinned.“I think I can dream up 10,000!” (Ewert, 2008: n.p.).

Called for the first time a ‘girl,’ Bailey also gains

acceptance from one of her community members. At the same

time, the implied reader is invited to question again the

sex and gender presentation of Bailey.

95

Throughout the picturebook, the message of the story is

clear and unwavering: everyone deserves to be loved and

celebrated for who they are. This all-encompassing message

is not unusual for books about LGBT individuals (or a story

about anyone who has been ‘othered’ for that matter)—and

yet, this picturebook is striking for its lack of

didacticism. The message of 10,000 Dresses is clear, but it is

not didactic. Unlike picturebooks which attempt to normalise

a LGBT person or same-sex couples, Ewert and Ray do not

normalize or attempt to explicitly explain Bailey’s sex,

gender, or sexuality. Instead, the interactions between the

text and illustrations encourage the reader to piece

together their own understanding of Bailey, determining

their own interpretation of the compulsory order of

sex/gender/desire.

On the opening double page spread of 10,000 Dresses, the

reader is provided the salient image of a young child, from

the neck up, sleeping on a pillow directly on the centrefold

(Ewert, 2008: n.p.). As sheep fly over the child’s head, the

text implies that this child is Bailey and that Bailey

96

From 10,000 Dresses by Marcus Ewert and Rex Ray.

dreams of dresses. The

sleeping child has short

spiky hair, long spiky

eyelashes, freckles, pink

lips and ears that stick out.

From hair to torso, Bailey is

all one colour: a pale pink.

The reader does not know if

this child is a boy or a girl

and the narrator does not

clarify. Turning the page, the image of Bailey is now at the

bottom of the verso and full-bodied, lying in bed with dream

bubbles directed from Bailey’s head into a large inset of a

staircase of dresses (Ewert, 2008: n.p.). The reader turns

the page again to see Bailey on the verso in the crystal

dress. It is not until the narrator’s pronoun use of ‘her’

in the phrase ‘with all her heart,’ however, that the reader

learns Bailey’s gender (Ewert, 2008: n.p.). At this point in

the picturebook, the only textual, gender-specific

97

information the reader has about the protagonist is that she

is a girl called Bailey who dreams of dresses.

Visually, Bailey is depicted as an androgynous

character. She has short hair—a common haircut for young

boys—but does not have any specific physical features or

clothing which could be read as ‘male’ or ‘female.’ Aside

from wearing the dresses in her dreams, Bailey’s apparel is

gender neutral as she wears white underwear and no top when

she is asleep, puts on a white shirt when she goes to find

Mother, and a white shirt and long jean shorts when she goes

to find Father and her brother (Ewert, 2008: n.p.). In terms

of performing one gender or another, Bailey is performing

neither in her daily life. And yet, through her dreams of

dresses, the reader learns of the gender is wishes to

perform. The picturebook is not just about dreaming of

fantastic fashion design, but instead addresses an issue of

inconsistency within Bailey: she is called a ‘boy’ by her

family yet does not feel ‘like a boy.’ This ‘issue’ is not

an issue for Bailey herself (or Laurel), but for her family

members. As the reader witnesses in the picturebook, the

98

external pressure to conform to Butler’s compulsory order of

sex and gender (and, implicitly, desire) from her family

members creates conflict and loss for Bailey where there was

none upon waking from her dreams. Reading Bailey’s story

through the lens of Butler’s theory of the compulsory order

of sex/gender/desire allows the reader to examine how her

identity categories are constructed within the picturebook

as they trouble the very order that creates them.

Almost systematically, Ewert and Ray first address

Bailey’s sex—or, rather, refuse to address her sex. As I

have noted previously, the narrator does not use a gendered

pronoun for Bailey until the third double page spread of the

picturebook. When the narrative necessitates a gendered

pronoun in reference to Bailey’s heart, only then does the

narrator finally use the pronoun ‘her.’ From this gendered

usage, a reader can assume Bailey’s sex is female. This

assumption of Bailey’s sex is contradicted, however, at each

interaction with one of Bailey’s family members wherein she

is referred to as a ‘boy’ through the dialogue between the

characters. Now the reader knows that the narrator refers to

99

Bailey by feminine pronouns, which would indicate the female

sex, and yet her family members refer to her as a boy (i.e.

the male sex). Furthermore, on the final page of the

picturebook, Laurel exclaims: ‘You’re the coolest girl I’ve

ever met, Bailey!’ (Ewert, 2008: n.p.)—an additional

reference to Bailey’s sex being female. On the subject of

her sex, Bailey does not comment beyond her repeated

response to her family members ‘But…I don’t feel like a boy’

(Ewert, 2008: n.p.). Bailey does not clarify who she does

feel like, however, nor do Ewert and Ray through their text

or illustrations. Without a firm understanding of Bailey’s

sex, the compulsory order is in trouble: what gender ‘must’

Bailey perform if her family believes she was born a boy,

her neighbour thinks she’s a girl, and Bailey does not

provide an answer?

Aside from being upset by her family’s responses,

Bailey appears comfortable within herself—without needing to

define her sex or gender. Illustrated in paper cut-outs and

computer graphics, Bailey shines in her dreams as she wears

the dresses and each morning when she goes to find someone

100

to help her make one of her dreams a reality. Her eyes are

wide open and her posture upright, the dresses sparkle and

the staircase radiates from behind her. In her dreams,

Bailey is performing the gender of her heart’s desire—a

gender which includes dresses. While the narrator’s use of

the female pronouns in combination with Bailey’s desire to

make and wear the dresses of her dream, Bailey still does

not clarify or, more importantly maybe, name her gender.

Even as Bailey and Laurel are reflected in their mirror

dresses, Bailey pronounces that the dresses ‘show us

OURSELVES’ (Ewert, 2008: n.p.)—no sex, no gender, just

themselves. Choosing to name—or not name—oneself is

highly important for transactivists and transtheorists

working with transsexual and transgender people. Such

distinctions become relevant particularly in discussions

about gender-ambiguous people such as Bailey as well as in

the case of Brandon Teena, who was murdered in 1993. In her

chapter ‘Transsexual Empires and Transgender Warriors,’

Nikki Sullivan writes that Brandon was born with female

genitalia but lived out his life as a man; it was also his

101

murder that provided the basis for the film Boys Don’t Cry

(Sullivan, 2003: 113). Referring to the media’s need to

define Brandon by a sex or gender—sometimes ‘Brandon Teena,’

sometimes ‘Teena Brandon;’ sometimes ‘he,’ sometimes ‘she’—

Sullivan writes:

‘Rather than attempting to define Brandon, it might bemore useful to ask what the effects of naming are, whoparticular names serve, how and why. For transpeople,gays and lesbians, and in fact anyone who has beenothered by dominant discourses and institutions, theimportance of naming is abundantly clear, and inparticular, the necessity to resist categories that areimposed by other and that are detrimental to the self.Transactivists are sensitive, as Hale notes, to the waysin which transgender or transsexual subjectivity can berendered invisible in and through the use of names andpronouns. For example, calling the gender-ambiguousperson…Teena Brandon, or referring to Brandon as “she”or “he”, cover over any sense of amibuguity, or deniesthe chosen gender of the subject concerned…’ (2003:114).

Like the media with Brandon, 10,000 Dresses renders Bailey as a

gender-ambiguous person: possibly born a male, desiring to

perform a feminine gender. Even as Bailey does not choose

for herself a definitive name, pronoun or gender, she does

chose the way in which she acts out her desires.

102

When considering Butler's compulsory order of

sex/gender/desire, desire can stand in for sexuality, the

desire for and sexual attraction to another person. Butler,

though, has specifically not chosen sexuality as the third

piece to her constructed social order. Instead, desire

represents everything a person might have desire for given

that they are of a particular (socially constructed) sex

and/or gender. In this way, there is no need to answer the

taboo question of who Bailey might desire, only what she

might desire—and what she desires is dresses. By not forcing

any definitive identity category upon her, Ewert and Ray

breakdown and refuse to make Bailey fit into the socially

constructed compulsory order. Without a definitive sex,

there is no definitive gender. Without a definitive gender,

there is not definitive desire. Thus Bailey becomes as fluid

and inconsistent and inevitable as Rabinowitz argues she

should be. As queer theory’s project is to allow and make

powerful gender ambiguity, Bailey is a triumph in queer

narrative.

103

Queerness does exist throughout picturebooks for

children, and sometimes it is just a matter of knowing where

and how to look for it. Effeminate protagonists like Roger

and Bernard are out there, taking a stand for themselves and

for their talents. Gender-bending girls are out there too,

like Bernard’s sister Sara who cannot sew and only wants to

play football. Sometimes, though, children (and adults) just

need a book that is queer, without references to particular

words or fashions. 10,000 Dresses is the ‘something better that

has proven illusive’ (Huskey, 2002: 67). To that end, Bailey

represents the queer child that defies the compulsory demand

to be a ‘boy’ or a ‘girl.’ In a queer paradigm, Rabinowitz

writes, ‘There is no single marker that always and

unquestionably defines “boy” or “girl,” so such a person or

character cannot exist, even in theory’ (2006: 22). No

archetypal boy or girl can exist, but gender ambiguous

characters (and people) happen every moment. As a character,

Bailey calls attention to the performance of our identity

categories, and seemingly brushes off the compulsory demands

and questions—unconcerned, affirmed and proud.

104

Chapter 5

What ‘Troubling’ Does: The Possibilities of

Picturebooks

In 1976, James Marshall published a chaptered picturebook

entitled Speedboat. The first illustration of Chapter One

shows the two male protagonists Jasper Raisintoast, a fox,

and Jack Tweedy-Jones, a dog, in bed together, presumably

sharing a bedroom as well as a bed. Raisintoast has just

woken up, and Tweedy-Jones is still asleep, his tonic and

anagrammed slippers next to the bed. The story concerns the

events of one day in the lives of the picturebook’s

protagonists, revealing the consequences of Raisintoast’s

speedboat ride up the river and Tweedy-Jones’ inexplicable

floating experience with bubble gum. There is no reference

or explanation of their relationship, other than that they

are ‘pals’ (Marshall, 1976: n.p.). The implied author does

not seem interested in how the two animals came to share a

home or have a pal-like relationship; the implied reader105

assumes they always have. Like the opening scene, the final

illustration is of the two animals in bed once more, this

time Raisintoast is asleep and Tweedy-Jones puts out the

light. By all textual appearances, the two male protagonists

are great pals; through a queer lens, they are two great

pals in a loving same-sex relationship. Which interpretation

is ‘correct’ only matters to the reader who holds the

picturebook in their hands. This is what picturebooks enable

readers to do: discover something for themselves they might

not have seen elsewhere.

Throughout this dissertation, I have argued the myriad

ways in which LGBT families and queer individuals are read,

heard, and interpreted through children’s literature. Some

picturebooks, like Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin by Susan Bösche

and Andreas Hansen, have set out to educate children and

adults alike, only to miss their target audience. Other

picturebooks have filled a void in children’s literature for

LGBT families, such as Spacegirl Pukes by Katy Watson and Vanda

Carter or Daddy, Papa and Me by Lesléa Newman and Carol

Thompson. More still have unapologetically brought queer

106

love stories to children’s literature in Hello, Sailor by Ingrid

Godon and André Sollie and Queen Munch and Queen Nibble by Carol

Ann Duffy and Lydia Monks. From The Boy Who Cried Fabulous by

Lesléa Newman and Peter Ferguson to 10,000 Dresses by Marcus

Ewert and Rex Ray the queer child is also being brought to

the forefront of picturebooks for young children. From the

earliest representations of LGBT families with their same-

sex parents to two queens falling in love to a child who

desires the dresses she dreams of every night, each

picturebook text has ‘troubled’ the constructions of

identity and our conceptions of sex, gender and sexuality.

Furthermore, these picturebooks enable the child reader to

discover and question for themselves, in their own time,

inconsistencies within our heteronormative culture—two men

falling in love, a child with two mothers. As Daniel Lewis

writes in his chapter ‘How do picturebooks come to possess

meaning?’: ‘The picturebook is thus ideally suited to the

task of absorbing, reinterpreting and re-presenting the

world to an audience for whom negotiating newness is a daily

task’ (2006: 137). As the medium about which Lewis is

107

writing, picturebooks which narrate LGBT and queer stories

absorb, reinterpret, and re-present their own realities for

an audience whom are still learning to negotiate the world

around them.

In picturebooks about and for LGBT families, the task

of reinterpreting and representing the world derives from

the necessity to have texts which reflect the familial and

domestic configurations of families with two mothers or two

fathers at its head. In truth, the number of picturebooks

which actually have same-sex couples as parents are

miniscule compared to the number of LGBT families in the UK

and the US or the number of picturebooks including a mother

and father as parents. From my research, five new

picturebooks6 were published in 2009 across the UK and the

US which reflect an LGBT family; by contrast, how many

picturebooks were published last year in the two countries

which included the ‘domestic ideal’ of a ‘mother, father,

and offspring?’ (Theil, 2008: 157). The list would no doubt

6 The five new picturebooks published in 2009 are Mommy, Mama, and Me andDaddy, Papa and Me by Lesléa Newman and Carol Thompson; In Our Mothers’ House by Patricia Polacco; Gertrude is Gertrude is Gertrude is Gertrude by Jonah Winter and Calef Brown; and Not Ready Yet! by Tamsin Walker.

108

be much longer than five. As I argued in Chapter 2,

picturebooks which reflect LGBT families are not only for

the children of LGBT families, but for any child that

becomes a reader of that picturebook text. Whether the

family in the picturebook is normalised by comparison with

the multiplicity of familial configurations or is simply

understood as a family because of their love for one another

matters less if the real child reader takes away with them a

reinterpreted view of the world that may or may not be

different from their own.

On that same level, Rabinowitz argues that ‘queerness works

to expand what we think is possible and acceptable’ (2006:

19). In Chapter 3, I looked at the ways in which

picturebooks like Hello, Sailor and Queen Munch and Queen Nibble by

Carol Ann Duffy and Lydia Monks expand the conceptions of

love to include queer love stories, additionally blurring

the boundaries between friendship and romantic love.

Relatable narratives, the love stories between two queens or

a lighthouse keeper and a sailor not only become possible,

but expected as a result of the characters’ interactions

109

with one another. The visual and textual narratives of the

picturebooks communicate their intended ideologies because

they are not overtly didactic or concerned with making their

implied reader understand that same-sex relationships are

valid or ‘natural.’ Instead, the narratives provide the

larger context of the relationships rather than

foregrounding the acceptance of a same-sex relationship—thus

establishing it ‘most fully,’ as Huskey would argue (2002:

68). A queer reading of Queen Munch and Queen Nibble as well as

Hello, Sailor opens up the narrative to fluidity and allows the

opportunity for the child reader to ask questions of their

own—on their own terms.

According to Huskey, the opportunities for reading

queer narratives are endless. She writes, ‘There’s no

shortage of queer picture books if you’re looking in the

right places, or with the right eyes. For while

foregrounding homosexuality, whether deliberately or in

flight, robs the picture book of its queerness, seeking it

where it “isn’t” establishes it most fully’ (Huskey, 2002:

137). In Marshall’s Speedboat, the picturebook about Jasper

110

Raisintoast and Jack Tweedy-Jones can be read as a quirky

story about a fox and a dog that have a few wild adventures.

Like the mice in Chester’s Way by Kevin Henkes, the

anthropomorphising of the two male protagonists through a

queer lens, however, draws attention to the inconsistencies

relevant to their human behaviours: they are two male

characters of the same sex who share a home, meals, and a

bed; buy presents for one another; and do not like ‘kissing

mean ladies’ (Marshall, 1976: n.p.). Additionally, what do

we add to a queer reading if we know that Marshall, the

author-illustrator, was also gay? (Huskey, 2002: 69).

Produced in such a way, Speedboat is as much a queer

picturebook text as The Boy Who Cried Fabulous and My Brother

Bernadette by Jacqueline Wilson and David Roberts. When read

through as fluid characters unrestricted by gender binaries,

Raisintoast, Tweedy-Jones, Roger and Bernard all push the

reader to ‘expand what [they] think is possible and

acceptable’ (Rabinowitz, 2006: 19).

111

Similarly,

narratives about

queer children

further open up

interpretations

by troubling the

very basis upon

which our

heteronormative

society is based, what Judith Butler would argue as the

social construction of the compulsory order of

sex/gender/desire. By calling into question the static

‘nature’ of sex and gender, exposing gender as a performance

understood through codes of clothing, actions, interests,

etc., the characters of picturebooks like Chester’s Way or

10,000 Dresses enable a world view which rejects binary

opposition and stasis. By not buying into an ideal that a

person must fit into one sex or another, one gender or

another, a character like Bailey enables a reader to

question whether or not desire is more a marker of who we

112

From Speedboat by James Marshall.

are than any anatomical sex. Ewert and Ray encourage the

implied readers of 10,000 Dresses to ask the questions which

become relevant to them upon reading the book rather than

providing any inquires or answers which a child may be

interested in.

In the first and final lines of his text Reading

Contemporary Picturebooks: Picturing Text, Lewis quotes Barbara Bader

on picturebooks: ‘A picturebook is text, illustrations,

total design; an item of manufacture and a commercial

product; a social, cultural, historical document; and,

foremost, an experience for a child.... On its own terms its

possibilities are limitless’ (Bader qtd. in Lewis, 2006:

137). Choosing picturebooks as my focus for exploring LGBT

issues, queer theory and children’s literature, I could not

think of a medium more ‘limitless.’ Possibilities for

representation, re-interpretation, and communication abound

on every centimetre of every page—and the interactions

between themselves and, furthermore, with the child and

adult readers. Picturebooks take the skeleton of a textual

narrative and the evoking imagery of a series of

113

illustrations and place them intertwined in the hands of a

child to interpret and learn from. As Stephens argues, there

is no escaping the communication of ideologies in children’s

literature and in picturebooks about and for LGBT families

the importance of those loving and accepting ideologies

resonate. Picturebooks become an ideal medium to communicate

such ideologies as the indeterminacy of the interactions

between text and illustrations allow for multiple

interpretations—queer or not.

Without a doubt, queering or ‘troubling’ a text becomes

a political act regardless of a critic or reader’s

intention. And yet, politicising a text is not the sole

purpose in reading a picturebook about or for LGBT families

or queering a picturebook text. The final line of Duffy and

Monks’ Queen Munch and Queen Nibble reminds the reader of

another purpose. As Queen Munch sets off for Queen Nibble’s

palace for half of the year, the implied reader turns the

page to see a question presented for them to answer:

‘Now...what would you like for breakfast in the morning?’

(Duffy, 2002: n.p., emphasis original). In a single line, a

114

simple question reminds us that these picturebooks are

‘foremost,’ as Bader writes, ‘an experience for the child’

(Bader qtd. in Lewis, 2006: 137). For the love of queers,

picturebooks have been created for children that attempt to

reflect and reinterpret the lives of the LGBT community and,

as an experience at their level, allow children (and adults)

the space to ask their own questions, making room for the

inevitable inconsistencies of our world.

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Appendix 1

John Stephen’s ‘Frame of narrative transactions’ (1992: 21)

123

Ideological Function :: Implied Author

Ideological Function :: Implied Reader

Ideological Function :: Implied Reader

Executive Function :: Narrator

Executive Function :: Narratee

Executive Function :: Narratee

events; existents (setting; interactions, functions andspeech acts of characters)

(+/- focalization)

Actual World :: AUTHOR

Actual World :: READER