 Hi everyone, my name is Steph. This is Little Bookish Teacher. And today I'm going to be sharing a recommendation video that I actually originally shared on my main BookTube channel. And I wanted to bring it over here so that it is included in my recommendation list on Little Bookish Teacher. I'm gonna be sharing some of my favorite queer picture books for kids. And I think these are incredibly important to have in any collection. So I hope that you enjoy revisiting this list. I am very excited about this. We've recently had a week at school where we have talked about inclusiveness. We've talked about diverse families. We have celebrated the diverse members of our community. And this was a huge part of that, having recommendations for staff to go to and to share with their students. And there were some really fantastic conversations that came out of that with the kids. And I wanted to share a couple of the books that were on our recommended list. I will preface this by saying that I know overseas that some of these books, and in fact, I'm pretty sure all of them might be banned in certain parts of, particularly the US. And that just absolutely breaks my heart that that is the case because these stories are absolutely beautiful and celebrate the amazing uniqueness of every individual. By sharing this video, I hope that if you haven't heard of these books that you have the opportunity to then go and explore them either yourself or with your own kids because they are just absolutely beautiful stories inside and out. I'm gonna start with three Australian picture books. And then I'm going to share two of my favorite international ones that we read during this week. And in fact, the first two books you might have heard me talk about earlier in the year, they're by Scott Stewart. And the first one is called My Shadow is Pink. And this was a story that Scott Stewart wrote for his son because his son was not conforming to gender stereotypes. And he wanted to celebrate the uniqueness of his child. And this is just a story about a young boy who knows that he is different from his peers. His interests are different to the other boys that he knows, but he is deeply passionate about all of those things. And where his dad's shadow is blue, his shadow is pink. And he knows that his dad doesn't always understand why he doesn't like the same things that other boys do. His dad has unconditional love for him. And this is shown when he has a moment at school and he feels very self-conscious. And he's going to school in a dress and his dad turns up in a tutu and is there with him and shows him that it's okay to be who you are. And that is important. It is an absolutely gorgeous story that challenges gender stereotypes and just showcases that unconditional love the parents have or should have for their children. The second book is My Shadow is Purple, which I almost think I love just a little bit more. And I think it's possibly because from a teaching perspective, this is a book that applies in a much broader sense in terms of classroom community and school community. And I know that many, many classes across the school across all age groups actually read this book during the week. And so in My Shadow is Purple, the narrator of the story or the main character is challenging the gender binary and they look around at their family. Mum's shadow is pink, dad's shadow is blue, but their shadow is purple and they don't quite fit in. And that's fine. Like they've got friends, they enjoy everything about it. And then they go to the school dance and suddenly everyone's being separated into those with blue shadows and those with pink shadows. And so they feel so self-conscious and they go to leave. And then one of their friends pipes up and goes, well, no, my shadow is brown. And then someone goes, no, my shadow is yellow. And suddenly it becomes a huge celebration of uniqueness and diversity and acknowledging that we don't have to fit into a neat little box to be accepted. I will say I was not a fan of the teacher in this book that did the separating in the first place because that's something I try to avoid. I mean, I'm not always perfect at it, but it's definitely something that I'm constantly working towards to not feeling like kids have to be pigeonholed into one place. But the other thing that I really, really loved about this story is that even when the main character is talking about their parents, mum is not always doing the stereotypically girly things. She might have a pink shadow, but she is the tough person in the family and dad is the sensitive soul despite having a blue shadow. So it does challenge all of that as well, which I thought was fantastic. And also I just have to say that when the main character goes to their dance, their outfit is the bomb. I absolutely loved it. It was such a, it's such a beautiful book. I know my students absolutely loved it when they were reading it as well. We had an activity for them where they got to strike their favorite pose and draw their shadow in the color that they thought it was and just celebrate all the things that make them them. And it was fantastic. There's another Australian book called Who's Your Mum by Bernadette Green and Anna Zobel which was shortlisted a year or two ago, I think for the Children's Book Council Awards. It is an absolutely gorgeous book. It is about Elvie who has two mums and she absolutely adores them, absolutely adores them. And then her friend Nicholas comes over and in typical kid fashion what says, well, who's your real mum? Because he comes from probably a more stereotypical family unit and he doesn't understand. And so Elvie tries to explain it to him and she makes it lighthearted. My real mum is a clown. My real mum does all of these amazing things. And he just keeps asking, no, no, who's your real mum? And she knows what he's trying to get at. And so in a very beautiful way she explains it to him in terms of understanding that it actually doesn't matter who her real mum is because they're both her real mums because they both care and love for her. It's gorgeous. And one of the beautiful things about this book is that the color palette for the illustrations are really only in two colors, there's yellow and blue. And there's a lot of detail in the illustrations as well. So it makes it a very visually appealing book to spend some time actually looking at and unpacking because so much happens in the pictures as it always does with any good picture book. All right, and then two international titles that I hadn't read before this year and I'm now in love with. And I know that I have clearly missed out on reading these but, you know, international picture books are not always as big over here as international adult titles. So sometimes you have to do a little bit of digging. So the first one is Julianism I Made by Jessica Love which I just, once I read it, I fell in love with this book. It is so gorgeous. So Julian is traveling home with Isabella and he sees three beautiful ladies walking down the street. They're dressed in stunning outfits and they look like they have mermaid tails. And so when Julian gets home, he wants to dress just like them and he wants to be a mermaid. And so he starts appropriating things from the house and, you know, taking down drapes and using flowers and borrowing from all over the place. And he keeps thinking that Isabella is going to, you know, he gets very self-conscious that she's going to be upset with him for how he's dressed and what he's done. But instead the ending shows that she is very well aware of who Julian is. She loves him unconditionally. The whole thing is just a joyful, heartwarming celebration of embracing who you are, being yourself and not being afraid to show that side of yourself to the world. And yes, you are wonderful just the way that you are. Absolutely gorgeous. And then the final book that I wanted to mention is Antango Makes Three by Justin Richardson. This book is so cute. I vaguely remember hearing the story of the two male penguins in the New York Zoo that, you know, adopted a penguin egg and raised the penguin. But like it was sort of just this one little story that I'd heard and vaguely remembered but didn't really know what had happened. So this story is based on true events. It is about Roy and Silo, the two male penguins who are in a relationship together and they're in the zoo and they're always watching the other penguin couples sitting together on their eggs, but they don't have one. And so they find this rock that almost looks like an egg and they put it in their nest and they both sit on the rock and it's gorgeous. And the keepers notice this. They have a penguin egg that doesn't have parents. And so basically it's like a fostering situation. They swap out the rock for the egg and then Roy and Silo raise this egg and it's absolutely gorgeous. And then Tango is the baby penguin that comes out of the egg. And it's so heartwarming and beautiful and a really gentle way to talk about different relationships and that it's okay. Also different, you know, different family dynamics. Tango isn't basically a adopted penguin and it's just, I love it so much. And my teaching partner actually took this lesson where she was reading and Tango makes three with my class and she said, you know, they had a really good conversation about it, about family structures and they got really into it. To be fair, we have been learning a lot about penguins recently so that may have helped with that. They were just so fascinated by the story because, you know, penguins are so likable and it's a nice gentle way to introduce that with young children. All right, so those are some queer picture books that I absolutely love. I will leave them all linked down below so that you can check them out. They're not the only ones that I know of, I do have others but I just wanted to keep this video fairly short so that there may be a part two in the future. And if you have any other recommendations for me, feel free to leave them down below because I would absolutely love to check them out. If you wanna let me know that you're here but you don't wanna leave a comment, feel free to leave a penguin emoji. Otherwise, I hope that wherever you're in the world, you're staying safe and healthy and I will see you in my next video. Thanks so much for watching. Bye everyone.