With the rapidly developing popularity of young adult LGBTQ+ fiction, evidenced most recently through Alice Oseman’s Heartstopper series, it is becoming increasingly more apparent that there is a growing demand for children’s fiction that features LGBTQ+ narratives, even at the lowest reading ages. 

In a discussion at The Bookseller Children’s Conference 2022, Jodie Lancet-Grant and Charlie Morris dove into the issue of LGBTQ+ representation in children’s fiction and the importance of increasing the diversity in the family structures depicted within these books. 

When searching for books that she felt would reflect her own same-sex parent household to her children, Lancet-Grant discovered the limited options available within the market, with the books that were available focusing only on the ‘otherness’ of these families. Following in the spirit of ‘If you want something done right, do it yourself’, she decided to embark on writing her own children’s books to present a more accurate depiction of the different forms and dynamics of modern family life. 

“The earlier that children are introduced to the idea that loving relationships don’t have to just be between two people of different genders, the more I think they’re going to just accept that and bring that acceptance with them as they grow up”

Jodie Lancet-Grant, The Bookseller Children’s Conference 2022

Combatting this ‘othering’ is a central theme of Lancet-Grant’s own books, which feature same-sex parents as an incidental feature rather than a driving factor of the narratives. In her book The Pirate Mums, the protagonist expresses the embarrassment he feels about what his family looks like compared to those of his friends, but not because of the genders of his parents. The book subverts this convention by shifting his embarrassment to the pirate nature of his family and spins a tale of learning to accept the differences of one’s family that are actually what make it unique, without isolating the LGBTQ+ aspects as the factor causing this difference. 

Interestingly, Lancet-Grant posits that it is the children of parents who are not necessarily LGBTQ+ allies who are most in need of being exposed to books in which heterosexuality is not the default. It is children who may not otherwise be exposed to these relationships who have the most to gain from seeing families different from their own and seeing a more accurate representation of modern society. 

In another insightful talk at the conference, Sam Langley-Swain spoke about his experience of publishing Nen and The Lonely Fisherman, a beautiful picture book exploring the love story between two male characters. He discussed his experiences of growing up and being unable to see himself within the characters of the books he was presented with, and how this made him disillusioned with the act of reading. It is a wonder then that it has taken so long for there to be a market for LGBTQ+ fiction and that, as Lancet-Grant describes, these examples may seem like “drops in the ocean”. However, what these talks and their inclusion at this conference show us, is that audiences are becoming more receptive to alternative depictions of family relationships and narratives focusing on same-sex love, and that change is imminent. 

LGBTQ+ representation in children’s books is, therefore, vital not only to provide relatability to children whose families may look different from others, but for those who need to see normalised representations of LGBTQ+ relationships in order to unlearn the inherent heterosexuality of children’s media. 

Image credit: Photo by Alexander Grey on Unsplash

Twitter: @natquinn2000