Book It: Heather Has Two Mommies

My town's library continues to surprise me. I had pretty much given up on finding anything fun there, when I found out that they didn't have any volume of Foucault's History of Sexuality when I wanted to reread it last year. So I was pretty surprised after reading about all the controversy surrounding gay and lesbian children's books that they have seven copies of Tango Makes Three and a copy of Heather Has Two Mommies.

I hadn't read Heather before, and considering the mark that it's made on pop culture, being referenced in reading lists, TV, movies, and by the religious right, I thought it was high-time that I got to reading it.

I found there isn't much to say about it, actually. It doesn't really have a story arc, it's just about Heather and some of her classmates talking about their families. Like, they're all different. That's a pretty basic message that I remember hearing on Sesame Street, of course they didn't show any same-sex parents there, and it's obviously a message that some people ought to learn when they talk about the heterosexual model. The artwork was nice. Not really my style, but one of the mommies is a carpenter and one wore a "No Nukes" T-shirt, and I got a kick out of that.

I guess what I'm trying to say in this whole thing is that there really isn't anything here to cause any controversy. It's pretty non-political, and the political controversy was just applied to it. It's worth reading, if only to see that everything surrounding this book was totally made up. Well, that and the way the kid whose parents are divorced is dressed.