TACKLE HOMOPHOBIA

It is important to teach students about diversity to help them develop empathy for others. This lesson, for first and second graders, uses Todd Parr's picture book It's Okay to Be Different to help students understand what diversity means and how it applies to them. After a shared reading of the text, students work in small groups to discuss and write down what makes them diverse. They then visit Todd Parr's website and create pages for their own books about diversity. Students share their completed books with another class.

As he did in The Mommy Book and The Daddy Book (both Little, Brown, 2002), Parr introduces children to an array of families. Whimsical illustrations featuring neon colors and figures outlined in black show big ones and small ones, and families that look alike and relatives who look just like their pets. The art features both human and animal figures; thus, pigs depict both a family that likes to be clean, and one that likes to be messy. Some families include stepmoms, stepdads, stepsisters, or stepbrothers; some adopt children. Other families have two moms or two dads, while some children have only one parent. Interspersed with the differences among families are the ways they are alike: all like to hug each other, are sad when they lose someone they love, enjoy celebrating special days together, and can help each other to be strong. This concept book celebrating the diversity of family groups is distinguished by its sense of fun.

Reminiscent of Dr. Seuss and Hilary Knight, here is a clever read-aloud about a little girl who lives on a planet where everything is pink. Priscilla dreams of seeing the world in other colors and ends up teaching the Great Queen of Pink that diversity leads to true beauty. Priscilla's story is told in lyrical verse and young girls will enjoy reading her pink planet adventure aloud.

Written by psychologist Jennifer Bryan and beautifully illustrated by animal lover and knitting wizard Danamarie Hosler, The Different Dragon is a softcover picturebook intended for children ages 3-8, about a boy who learns a lesson about character and expectations during storytime. When young Noah gets ready for bed, he wants to hear a bedtime story with a sailboat in it, as well as his beloved cat Diva, and best of all, a fierce and ferocious dragon! But as the story progresses, Noah feels that the dragon is crying, because the dragon just can't be terrifying anymore. "It's a lot of pressure to be fierce all the time. All that roaring and gnashing of teeth and snorting fire. It's a lot of work to scare people and be so mean. And nobody ever wants a dragon to be funny or sad or just regular. There's only one way for a dragon to be and that's that." Noah befriends the dragon, and shows him that he can do other things than be fierce and terrible - like play badminton or share ice cream. The Different Dragon is published by Two Lives Publishing, the only publisher of children's books expressly intended for kids in LGBT families; and so it happens that young Noah has two mothers, one who helps him get ready for bed (though he needs only a little help) and Go-Ma, who invents the tale about The Different Dragon along with him. Noah's family (consisting of two mothers, a younger sister, two cats, a gerbil, and some fish) are presented as simply a normal part of his life, and not the central focus of the tale. A soft-stated yet groundbreaking picturebook.

Roger is "different" much to his parents' dismay, until he teaches them just how fabulous being different can be!

This is a simple story about a creature called Something Else who is excluded from his neighbour's activities because he behaves and looks different. But then when an even stranger creature tries to make friends with Something Else, he doesn't want to know, until he sees himself in the mirror.