Is it really a picture book?

I have to start by confessing something. I love reading picture books - the sort meant for "little kids". The Senior Cat loved them too. 

The Senior Cat would prowl around the picture book shelves in our local indie bookshop and choose presents for the very young children of his acquaintance. (He would give the older children book vouchers because he believed they should learn to choose their own books.) He would read picture books to the very young - if he wasn't making up stories for them. 

I do the same. Middle Cat remarked only yesterday that I happen to have two copies of Jen Campbell's "Franklin's Flying Bookshop" on hand. Yes. I want to make sure that a very young one of my acquaintance can have a copy when he is old enough to appreciate the story. I have several other "second copies" of books on hand for children I know. I am observing them now and I will know when they are ready for some things and not others, whether their developing personalities will need one book rather than another. It's important to give children the right book.

Let me repeat that. It's important to give children the right book. I try to give children books that I believe they will enjoy, that they will want to keep, that will last. 

I do not want to give children "books about...." because some issue or other happens to be in the news. I don't want didactic books. I don't want books with "overtones". Books given as gifts by me should be given so as to be enjoyed.

All this has come up because someone sent me a "tweet" and asked if I thought a book was suitable for children. It is a book by Harry Woodgate. Apparently there was a previous book by the same author. I missed that one. When I asked about it at our local library one of the staff looked at me and then said, "Ask ..... about that." 

I asked and she told me, "We had to put it in eventually but I don't like it. We have the second one coming too and that is much worse in my view. Little kids don't need to know about that sort of thing and it is going to upset a lot of parents. I'll be talking to parents about it in Storytime - just to warn them."

The two books in question, "Grandpa's Camper" and "Grandpa's Pride" both feature men in gay relationships. I don't have a problem with that as such. It's a fact of life and many children will be aware of couples in same sex relationships. The difference here though appears to be that the books are designed to overtly teach children about gay relationships, about "Pride" relationships, about "transgender" issues. The second book includes a picture which actually says, "Trans children are wonderful".  There are other pictures I would also question. I would question the entire story in fact. I also doubt that it will capture the imagination. It just doesn't feel right to me.

I can imagine a child's picture book where same sex couples are there in a much more indirect way. A book where they are shown through the pictures rather than words and where the relationship is not made an issue of at all might have a great deal to commend it.

But, I don't feel comfortable about the Woodgate books. They have been published by the well respected "Andersen Press". I suspect they have been published under duress or because one person on the staff has issues with the themes involved.  Is that the best reason to do it? 

I left the library feeling disturbed. I had to pass the shelf where the older child, a girl, had once looked up at me and said the words which are seared into my memory, "I'm sick of AIDS and death and divorce. I just want a good adventure story." That was a long time ago now and it seems things haven't changed. Perhaps it is time to insist on some "good adventure stories"?