From Kirkus Reviews: Bare-bones biography of a purported WWI hero who was in fact a woman. Lillias Irma Valerie Barker, born in 1895 on the Channel Island of Jersey, was a tomboy whose father taught her cricket and boxing, though Valerie also attended a convent school and had a formal debutante ball. She married in 1918 but fled her husband within six weeks and enrolled in the Women’s Royal Air Force. At war’s end, she took up with Australian soldier Ernest Pearce Crouch and had two children; when the couple split up, Valerie gave up the daughter for adoption. In 1922, she arrived in Brighton, young son in tow, claiming to be war hero “Victor Barker.” Victor met and married Elfrida Haward, supporting her and the son (who had learned to call Victor “Daddy”) as a stage actor, antiques shop owner, and gentleman farmer. In 1929, after a restaurant venture failed, Victor was arrested for contempt of court, and her true identity became known. A series of lurid newspaper stories followed; Elfrida left Victor, claiming to the press she’d had no idea of his true gender. Victor/Valerie was sentenced to nine months’ imprisonment for “outrag[ing] the decencies of nature.” After her release, she adopted various new aliases, including “John Hill” and “Jeffrey Norton.” Plagued by financial troubles and brushes with the law, Valerie was reduced to selling her story to the press; one summer she joined a sideshow. She died in 1960 in a small village where she was known as retired shopkeeper Geoffrey Norton. Because Valerie left behind no personal papers, she remains little more than a caricature here. Perhaps due to this dearth of material, Collis continually interrupts the narrative with similar tales of women living as men that derail the main story’s momentum. Heartfelt, but it’s hard to see how the end result differs from the sensationalistic contemporary newspaper accounts.

From the Publisher: This book follows on directly from You Must No Longer Lie Alone, and covers the lives of three gay couples over a period of several years. The principal characters are Sandro Mascagnoli and Dominic Overton. Its traces their lives from Dom’s final undergraduate year and Sandro’s first postgraduate year through their higher degree study to them getting jobs and becoming civil partners. Thereafter it tells how they adopted twin daughters and how Sandro’s uncles David and Jonathan acquire a new adopted son, Tommy. After adopting their twin daughters with the girls’ great aunt as co-guardian, Dom and Sandro move to a family house in the village of Womble from which they can both commute to their jobs. The careers of Sandro’s brother Luke and his partner Tom in Italy are also followed. During the story, both Sandro and Tom get Ph.D.s and Tom gets an academic job in Italy. Luke builds up his reputation as a director and manager of opera, but has not yet established himself securely in his career.

From the Dust Jacket: Dan Savage’s mother wants him to get married. His boyfriend, Terry, says “no thanks” because he doesn’t want to act like a straight person. Their six-year-old son, D.J., says his two dads aren’t “allowed” to get married, but that he’d like to come to the reception and eat cake. Throw into the mix Dan’s straight siblings, whose varied choices form a microcosm of how Americans are approaching marriage these days, and you get a rollicking family memoir that will have everyone—gay or straight, right or left, single or married—howling with laughter and rethinking their notions of marriage and all it entails.

In a time when much of the country sees red whenever the subject of gay marriage comes up, Dan Savage, one of America’s most outspoken columnists, takes it on and makes it personal. As he comes to terms with the very public act of marriage, he draws us into the foibles and fealty of brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, and, especially, spouses.

---

About the Author: Dan Savage is the author of the internationally syndicated sex-advice column “Savage Love” and the editor of The Stranger, Seattle’s weekly newspaper. His books include Skipping Towards Gomorrah; Savage Love, a collection of his advice columns; and The Kid, an award-winning memoir about adoption. His writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, the op-ed pages of The New York Times, Travel & Leisure, Salon.com, Nest, Rolling Stone, The Onion, and other publications. He has also contributed numerous pieces to This American Life on NPR. He lives in Seattle, Washington.

---

By the Same Author: The Kid (1999), among others.

Gay parenting is a productive and positive decision, but author and lesbian mother Arlene Lev admits it isn’t always an easy one. With practical wisdom and advice, and personal real-life stories, Lev prepares gay parents for this endeavor with everything they need to know and everything they can expect while making their own significant and challenging mark on family life in the 21st century.

From the Introduction: Because this is a monumental life decision, I offer this workbook as a guide to help you make your way along the path to considering parenthood. With each decision regarding your parenting choices, there is yet another to be made. This workbook can help you make informed, responsible, and honest decisions. There is no expectation that you will choose or not choose to be a parent. There is only the hope that the exercises and text will guide your thinking, present you with many possibilities, and assist you in making choices that feel tight for you, the life you have chosen for yourself, and the life you hope to live.

---

INCLUDING: Support networks; Families of origin; Work; Money; Non-biological mothers; Legal issues; Intimacy; Co-parenting; Single parenting; Problem solving; Alternative fertilization; Adoption; and more.

This book realistically and knowledgeably addresses the choices involved in deciding whether or not to become a parent, for the lesbian communities and wise women everywhere.

---

About the Author: Cheri Pies was born in Los Angeles in 1949. She received her Master’s degree in Social Work from Boston University in 1976 and her Master’s degree in Public Health from the University of California at Berkeley in 1985. She has been a health activist for the past 15 years in the women’s health, reproductive rights and disability rights movements. Cheri has worked in many community organizations, including Planned Parenthood as a health educator and trainer. She is also one of the founders of a shelter for battered women and their children in Oakland.

Since 1977, Cheri has been leading groups for lesbians considering parenthood. In addition, she freelances as a facilitator and mediator, and has served as consultant to legal organizations, gay and lesbian groups, film projects and the mass media. For fun, Cheri enjoys jogging and swimming, spending time with her friends, playing with her three cats—Teddy, Bob and Tinkerbell, and performing as Violet the clown for adults and children. She is currently exploring the social and ethical implications of reproductive technologies and prenatal screening.

And yes, Cheri Pies is her real name.

From the Publisher: Katya Michaels, an English professor, and her adopted son, Sam, are living quietly outside the small town of Deer Falls, NY. Painter and general handywoman Chris Benet share an attraction, but unhappiness in each woman’s past makes it hard for them to move beyond flirtation. Despite the fact that two lesbians were recently murdered outside of town, the police ignore Katya’s calls about a caller threatening her son. Chris makes a heroic rescue of Sam, and the women soon find evidence the danger was deliberately caused, by that dastardly homophobic villain.

When state voters passed the California Marriage Protection Act (Proposition 8) in 2008, it restricted the definition of marriage to a legal union between a man and a woman. The act’s passage further agitated an already roiling debate about whether American notions of family could or should expand to include, for example, same-sex marriage, unmarried cohabitation, and gay adoption. But how do Americans really define family? The first study to explore this largely overlooked question, Counted Out asks men and women of different ages, races, religions, and socioeconomic backgrounds to share their opinions on what counts as family and what doesn’t. The book examines these currents in public opinion to assess their policy implications and to predict how Americans definitions of family may change in the future. Counted Out broadens the scope of previous studies by moving beyond efforts to understand how Americans view their own families to examine the way Americans characterize the concept of family in general. The book reports on and analyzes the results of the authors Constructing the Family Surveys (2003 and 2006), which asked more than 1500 people to explain their views on a broad range of issues, including gay marriage and adoption, single parenthood, the influence of biological and social factors in child development, religious ideology, and the legal rights of unmarried partners. Not surprisingly, the authors find that the standard bearer for public conceptions of family continues to be a married, heterosexual couple with children. More than half of Americans also consider same-sex couples with children as family, and from 2003 to 2006 the percentages of those who believe so increased significantly up six percent for lesbian couples and five percent for gay couples. The presence of children in any living arrangement meets with a notable degree of public approval. Less than 30 percent of Americans view heterosexual cohabitating couples without children as family, while similar couples with children count as family for nearly 80 percent. Many Americans, however, are still torn over whether certain living arrangements count as family, particularly same-sex couples without children. And nearly all reject the idea that housemates, for example, are family. Counted Out shows that for most Americans, however, the boundaries around what they define as family are becoming more malleable with time. Although such issues as same-sex marriage and gay adoption remain at the center of a cultural divide, Counted Out demonstrates that American definitions of family are becoming more expansive not less. Who counts as family has far-reaching implications for policy, including health insurance coverage, end-of-life decisions, estate rights, and child custody. Public opinion matters. As lawmakers consider the future of family policy, they will want to consider the evolution in American opinion represented in this groundbreaking book.

From the Dust Jacket: What makes an adoption board, community, or judge balk at the thought of allowing a gay man to adopt a little girl? How is it possible that a father who was convicted for the murder of his first wife can gain sole custody of the children from his second marriage, on the grounds that their mother is a lesbian? While these questions yield no easy or simple answer, they highlight the complexity and contradictions of an area of gay rights litigation overlooked by many in the early years of the gay rights movement: family law.

In Courting Change, Kimberly D. Richman zeroes in on this indeterminate and discretionary area of American law, focusing on judicial decisions—both the outcomes and the rationales—and what they say about family, rights, sexual orientation, and who qualifies as a parent. Richman challenges prevailing notions that gay and lesbian parents and families are hurt by law’s indeterminacy, arguing that, because family law is so loosely defined, it allows for the flexibility needed to respond to—and even facilitate—changes in how we conceive of family, parenting, and the role of sexual orientation in family law.

Drawing on every recorded judicial decision in gay and lesbian adoption and custody cases over the last fifty years, and on interviews with parents, lawyers, and judges, Richman demonstrates how parental and sexual identities are formed and interpreted in law, and how gay and lesbian parents can harness indeterminacy to transform family law.

---

About the Author: Kimberly D. Richman is an assistant professor of sociology and legal studies at the University of San Francisco.

In Cry of the Nightbird: Writers Against Domestic Violence, thirty-eight writers speak out in more than fifty prose and poetry pieces of a hidden tragedy: violence in homes, living in fear, and forced silence. Authors from every walk of life and every aspect of this difficult issue raise their voices as one to end this silence, to bring freedom and release for themselves and others. These words will inform and inspire readers: give them eyes to see, a way to express, and motivation to act. Proceeds from sales of Cry of the Nightbird: Writers Against Domestic Violence will be donated to YWCA Sonoma County to benefit their Domestic Violence Programs. Compiler’s Note: See, “Losing Abby” by Robyn Anderson, pp. 117-19.

From the Back Cover: Ben is nearly eight years old. He lives in an ordinary house, in an ordinary street, goes to an ordinary school and does ordinary things. In fact, he’s just like everybody else.

Or is he? Ben lives with his two dads who adopted him when he was four. : Children at his junior school find out and tease him. Ben is worried as he doesn’t want to be different from everybody else ... but what does “different” mean?

A charming and affirming picture book for young children that encourages an understanding and appreciation of same-sex parents as well as showing that families come in all shapes and sizes.

---

About the Author: Ed Merchant began social work in 1967, and has spent several years in child care and child protection, fostering and adoption.

As a gay parent, Ed was aware that there were gay couples who wanted to be parents, and were in a position to offer the emotional and practical care that children need. Some recent research that he did at Anglia Ruskin University convinced Ed that loving parents are what children need, regardless of the parent’s gender, and that gay couples needed positive encouragement to put themselves forward.

This book has been written to help and support children who are being parented by gay men, and also as an acknowledgement of the great work that all foster carers and adopters are doing.

Rachel Fuller specialises in children’s books and developing and illustrating novelty packages as well as young fiction and educational materials.

From the Back Cover: We once lived in an era that turned back the moments in time when the heterosexual was the dominant ruler and controller of society. Now as we fast forward into the millennium a new denomination holds the destiny to the new world as we know it today. Let us journey through two men’s lives as they set a new precedence that runs from Washington, D.C., to Down Town, USA. Let us share with you the testamentary foot prints on how we conquered marriage, success, adoption and our own assimilation. Are we two gay men or are we two people who choose a sexual orientation different from yours. We hold the credentials for setting the foundation in paving the path by allowing Federal Laws of America to allow sexual orientation to being a protected class under Title 7. After nearly seventeen years of being partnered we have become married as husband and husband. Being the first husband and husband to adopt as father and father in New York State has made us the “poster child” for generations to come. Let us tell you how to adopt locally without money through the raffs of the Child Welfare System. Let’s journey down our memory lane tell you how Daddy and Daddy have five beautiful children who have all had our dreams come true, now yet yours. The Child Welfare system provides many free services and incentives for adoption and foster care that also focuses on single-parent adoptions as well as husband-and-wife adoptions. This book is dedicated for people in need of families, not people in need of money. Remember it takes a village to raise a child.

This children’s book is about the formation of a non-traditional family. The characters are same-sex parents who created their family through a combination of adoption and surrogacy. The book presents the topic of a modern family in a simple fun way geared towards children. The characters are vividly colored animals including: Daddy Dog, Papi Panda and the children (Mikey Monkey and the three little kitties: Adriana, Ave, and Alex). The book is ideal for children of same sex parents as well as for parents who wish to educate their children about the diversity of family structure.

Rhythmic text and illustrations with universal appeal show a toddler spending the day with its daddies. From hide-and-seek to dress-up, then bath time and a kiss goodnight, there’s no limit to what a loving family can do together. Share the loving bond between same-sex parents and their children.

A powerful blazingly honest memoir told with humor and panache about a mother and son finding each other again after years of estrangement. A coming-of-age story of outrageous excess, glamour, entitlement and grand delusion, lived above the fray and over the top. A gay man’s journey through the joys and perils of his generation, coming out in the early eighties in the shadows of a terrifying disease that would devastate so many, surviving tremendous loss and culminating in his decision to adopt a child as a single parent.

From the Dust Jacket: In the title story from Dancing on the Moon, a young man, thinking of all his friends who have died from AIDS and those who are ill, says: “No one out there has a clue as to what our lives are like. All this is as strange to them as dancing on the moon.” The speaker marveling at the gulf that separates those affected by AIDS from a world that thinks itself immune is just one of the memorable characters in this unprecedented book of twelve virtuoso stories about the impact of AIDS, particularly as it has reverberated through the lives of gay men. With profound literary courage, Jameson Currier documents what those lives are like.

With sure-handed narrative skill, Chekhovian compassion, and remarkable grace, Currier writes not only about those who are living with AIDS and those who have died from it but also about the friends, families, and lovers who nurse and care for the sick and remember them afterward. His characters range from rebellious Southern teenagers to an elderly Jewish woman whose grandson has died, to an infant with AIDS adopted by an AIDS widower and his new lover. “What They Carried” concerns the things friends bring and give to another friend over the course of his struggle with the disease. “Reunions” finds two men sharing a bizarre cab ride in the last days of their illnesses. In “The Absolute Worst” a woman reunites two former lovers from her college years. A woman submerges herself in the new life of her dead brother’s lover in order to come to terms with her own losses in “Weekends.” In “Ghosts” a man seeks out a dying acquaintance in an unconscious attempt to justify his own lover’s suicide. In all the stories men and women search for order and reason during a health crisis that knows no rationale.

---

About the Author: Jameson Currier was born and raised in the South and is a graduate of Emory University. His short stories and essays have appeared in a variety of publications, including Christopher Street, The Crescent Review, Art & Understanding, Au Courant, and the anthology Certain Voices. He has also written for the stage and screen, including the documentary Living Proof: HIV and The Pursuit of Happiness. He currently lives in Manhattan and is at work on a novel.

From the Publisher: Young children can change your world forever. Over the years, families have taken many different forms. But one thing remains constant: adults are forever changed by the arrival of a child. The love and sense of wonder they feel for this small life deepen as each day passes. John Farrell and Maurie J. Manning offer rhythmical words and tender, playful paintings to show the emotional connections between grown-ups and their little ones.

---

About the Author: John Farrell is a singer, songwriter, author, and storyteller who has made presentations at schools around the world. Mr. Farrell founded Bridges of Peace, an organization that advocates understanding through writing and the arts. He lives in Hillsdale, New York.

Maurie J. Manning has illustrated several books for children. She lives in Berkeley, California.

From the Publisher: With a foreword by Westbrook Pegler and commentary by Revilo P. Oliver, a firm indictment of California courts and state and federal officials who placed the author’s children into custody of homosexuals against his wishes and then systematically frustrated his attempts to regain his family. A tale of tyrannical imprisonment, persecutorial communist-style psychiatric prosecution, penal “torture therapy” incarceration, much more.

From the Back Cover: This bedtime story about bedtime stories shows how the wonderful curiosity and care of a little boy, with some help from his willing mom, can lead to magical and unexpected place. Join Noah and his cat, Diva, on this nighttime adventure and you too will leave with an unforgettable new dragon friend!

---

About the Author: Jennifer Bryan is a psychologist, consultant and teacher who lives in Northampton, Massachusetts, with her partner and two children.

Danamarie Hosler is an illustrator, muralist, knitting wizard and playful spirit who lives in Baltimore, Maryland with her dog, cats, pigs, pigeons and KNITMALS™.

From the Publisher: Ranging in age from six to forty, thirty-eight sons and daughters of lesbians offer brief essays that could be valuable to like offspring, as well as to relatives and friends trying to understand the problems such children face. Homophobia, visited upon the children as well as their mothers, is the most commonly cited concern; some younger contributors feel isolated from their peers, and a couple of boys endure rejection from radical lesbian acquaintances. Despite such difficulties, many contributors enjoy close relationships with their mothers and are happy in their unconventional homes.

For older children, their own sexual orientation is an issue, and there is occasional resentment engendered by a parent’s coming out—“Growing up is a hard enough thing to do,” says one young woman.

In 2005, Dan Bucatinsky and his partner, Don Roos, found themselves in an L.A. delivery room, decked out in disposable scrubs from shower cap to booties, to welcome their adopted baby girl—launching their frantic yet memorable adventures into fatherhood. Two and a half years later, the same birth mother—a heroically generous, pack-a-day teen with a passion for Bridezilla marathons and Mountain Dew—delivered a son into the couple’s arms. In Does This Baby Make Me Look Straight? Bucatinsky moves deftly from sidesplitting stories about where kids put their fingers to the realization that his athletic son might just grow up to be straight and finally to a reflection on losing his own father just as he’s becoming one. Bucatinsky’s soul-baring and honest stories tap into that all-encompassing, and very human, hunger to be a parent—and the life-changing and often ridiculous road to getting there.

For the past decade, the work of Sarah Fenstermaker and Candace West has revolutionized our understanding of gender and the notion of difference. Now for the first time these repeatedly anthologized works have been collected along with new essays to provide a complete understanding of this topic of tremendous importance to scholars in sociology, women’s studies and other social sciences. With a foreword by distinguished scholar, Dorothy Smith, and with pieces by Barrie Thorne, Howard Winant, and Patricia Hill Collins among others, this collection will serve as the definitive guide for gender and difference scholars. Compiler’s Note: See, particularly, Chapter 9: “ ‘Doing Gender’ Differently: Institutional Change in Second-Parent Adoptions” by Susan Dalton and Sarah Fenstermaker.

Just when life knocks you to the ground and things look their worst, Fate has something better in store. R.J. Sommers has been dumped, his best friends have just tied the knot, and the final nail—his roommate’s lover just arrived from Texas to sweep him off his feet. Life just loves laughing at R.J. That is until Julian arrives. Julian has been watching R.J., waiting for the chance to meet the vibrant entrepreneur. When R.J.’s beau leaves for greener pastures, Julian takes the chance to crash a party R.J. planned. When finding him in the crowd turns more into a rescue mission, Julian does what’s necessary to keep the other man from becoming a victim of an over-zealous suitor. Discovering himself along the way through the love and support of his friends, R.J. opens himself up to more than just the love of a new boyfriend. When he thinks life doesn’t like him anymore, something bigger and better than he’d ever dreamed is in store. If he can survive Julian’s persistence, his friend’s interference, and the loving affection of one yellow lab, he just might find more than he’s ever known his entire life.

From the Back Cover: During the past three decades, nations all over the world have been debating whether to allow same-sex couples to marry, or at least grant these couples various rights associated with marriage. In Equality for Same-Sex Couples, Yuval Merin presents the first comparative study of the legal regulation of same-sex partnerships worldwide, as well as a unique survey of the status of same-sex couples in Europe and the United States.

Merin begins by providing a historical overview of the transformation of marriage from antiquity to the present. He then identifies and critically compares four principal models for the legal regulation and recognition of same-sex partnerships: civil marriage, registered partnership, domestic partnership, and cohabitation. Merin concludes that all of the models except civil marriage discriminate against gays and lesbians just as the “separate but equal” doctrine discriminated against African Americans; thus, so-called alternatives to marriage, even if they provide the same rights and benefits as marriage, are inherently unequal and therefore unconstitutional.

---

About the Author: Yuval Merin is a law lecturer at the College of Management School of Law in Tel Aviv, Israel.

Should we believe in fairies? What happens to fairy tales in an age of reason? Who was the original wicked stepmother? Is Hansel and Gretel a story of childhood adventure, or brother-sister incest? How is a fifteenth century changeling fable related to a twentieth century adoption fantasy? Is The Little Mermaid a simple underwater fairy tale, or an allegory of homosexual castration fear? Drawing on the whole range of British legend, folklore, superstition and fairy tales, Maureen Duffy turns her formidable talents toward an unusual subject: the eroticism, both veiled and obvious, in this tradition. The voluptuousness of fantasy underlies and pervades all forms of imaginative creativity—oral, literary and pictorial—ranging from the blatantly earthy and phallic representations of ancient, pre-Christian times to the unique sensual outlets in as new a form as science fiction. The Fundamental sexuality of Faery—the whole body of British fable, myth and fantasy—is the engrossing subject of this book. About the Author: Maureen Duffy is a notable contemporary British poet, playwright and novelist. She has also published a literary biography of Aphra Behn, and The Erotic World of Faery a book-length study of eroticism in faery fantasy literature. After a tough childhood, Duffy took her degree in English from King’s College London. She went on to be a schoolteacher from 1956 to 1961, and edited three editions of a poetry magazine called the sixties. She then turned to writing full-time as a poet and playwright after being commissioned to produce a screenplay by Granada Television. Her first novel, written at the suggestion of a publisher, That’s How It Was (1962), was published to great acclaim. Her first openly lesbian novel was The Microcosm (1966), set in the famous lesbian Gateways club in London. To date she has published around 30 works, including five volumes of poetry. Her Collected Poems, 1949-84 appeared in 1985. Her work has often used Freudian ideas and Greek Myth as a framework. Her novel Gor Saga was televised in 1988 in a three part miniseries called First Born staring Charles Dance. She is said to have been Britain’s first lesbian to “come out” in public, and made public comments during the debates around homosexual law reform. In 1977 she published The Ballad of the Blasphemy Trial, a broadside against the trial of the Gay News newspaper for “blasphemous libel.” She has been active in a variety of groups representing the interest of writers, and is currently the President of the European Writers’ Congress, and a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. She is deeply interested in issues around enforcing traditional forms of intellectual property law. Her most recent novel Alchemy (2005) is out in paperback from Harper Perennial. It tells the story of a young lawyer, Jade Green asked to defend a mysterious case of dismissal from the teaching staff of a fundamentalist college and, in parallel, that of Amyntas Boston, a young woman in the household of the Countess of Pembroke in 1603 accused of witchcraft for wearing men’s clothes and practicing as a physician.

From the Publisher: Over 16,000,000 men served in the armed forces in WWII. Perhaps as many as 3%, or 480,000, had a homosexual orientation. Admittedly, several thousand were screened out before being inducted, and some later received Undesirable Discharges. 120,000 of these men saw combat action, and undoubtedly hundreds were killed, and thousands were wounded. Jack Scott, by far the most outstanding seventeen-year-old in a small town in Arkansas, is forced to confront this problem both at home and in the military. This story is his, and to a degree, the stories of his family, his friends, and his comrades in combat. The problem is handled sympathetically, if realistically.

---

Compiler’s Note: Adoption connection is unclear; I include it because it popped up on a subject search on Amazon.com. It also appears to have been published under the title The Rings of Misfortune.

Beckett Jamieson discovers he is adopted when a lawyer hands him a letter from his mother on his twenty-first birthday. His real name is Robert Bullen, but the Bullen family is involved in criminal activity of the worst kind. He decides to bring them down but ends up badly beaten and temporarily blinded. A Sanctuary agent takes him to a safe house to heal. Doctor Kayden Summers, Sanctuary operative, is not happy about being stuck in the middle of nowhere with an unconscious man. When Beckett wakes, the situation goes from bad to worse. Beckett does not trust him, is as determined as ever to find the evidence his mother hid, and on top of all that, Kayden finds himself attracted to the determined young man. Can they overcome their issues and eliminate the threat from the Bullen brothers?

From the Dust Jacket: Families come in all shapes and sizes. Angie lives with her mother in New York and visits her father, stepmother, and half brother in Boston. Her friend Susie doesn’t have a father; she lives with her mother and godmother. Marisel has a big family. Cousin Louie didn’t come from Aunt Julie’s belly, he’s adopted, but they still get to keep him forever.

Meredith Tax affirms that in big families, small families, dog families, and even ant families there is really only one thing that’s important—how much they love one another. Warm and funny illustrations by Marylin Hafner complete this reassuring, timely picture of what families are all about.

---

About the Author: Meredith Tax has been a single mother since her daughter, Corey, now six, was one year old. In a society of increasingly varied households, she writes to help children feel comfortable in their own family situations. Ms. Tax is the author of The Rising of the Women as well as a forthcoming adult novel, Rivington Street.

A well-known and popular illustrator of more than eighty children’s books, Marylin Hafner has her own family of three daughters, now grown up. She comes from a close-knit family herself, and as her illustrations show, she knows what families are all about and enjoys being part of them.

From the Dust Jacket: In her introduction to this innovative book, Avlette Jenness asks, “Families—what are they?” and answers, “Your family is the people who take care of you, who care about vou.” In the pages that follow, seventeen young people describe in their own words a rich variety of families—all different in composition but all alike in loving and caring for their members.

Tam’s family is a big one—there are two children who weren’t adopted and three who were. Laney is an only child, but in her large Cuban-American family she has sixty-two relatives. Eve mostly lives with her mom, but she spends about two nights a week with her father and her stepmom. Ananda’s family is her parents and the other members of the religious community with whom thev live.

These are only a sampling of the children who tell their stories and are pictured here in lively photographs by the author. Each of them has learned something important about families—their problems and their joys—and the reader also gains new insight into that vital institution, the family.

---

About the Author: Aylette Jenness was born in New York City in 1934. Her mother, Shelby Shackelford was a painter of some note and her father a physicist. The family moved to Baltimore in the 1940s when her father became a professor at Johns Hopkins University. Jenness attended Pratt Institute and later the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston to study sculpture. After teaching art at the elementary school level and working in day care she returned to school and received a masters degree in education from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst.

She worked at the Boston Children’s Museum for 25 years as a cultural developer of exhibitions, public programs, curricula, festivals, and workshops for teachers. Several books resulted, including The Kid’s Bridge, and Families: A Celebration of Diversity, Commitment, and Love. She also worked with Lisa Kroeber in Guatemala to produce A Life of Their Own: An Indian Family in Latin America.

Now living on Cape Cod with her cat Purrsia, Aylette is navigating a new world as she is losing her vision to macular degeneration. She embraces the light streaming in through her windows reflecting off the waters of the bay and feels grateful for each new morning that she is given.

In recent decades gay men and lesbians have increasingly portrayed themselves as people who seek not only to maintain ties with blood and adoptive relatives but also to establish families of their own. In Families We Choose, Kath Weston draws upon fieldwork and interviews to explore the ways gay men and lesbians are constructing their own notions of kinship by drawing on the symbolism of love, friendship, and biology. She presents interviewees’ stories of coming out and of their subsequent relations with straight families. She also discusses changes in gay communities that have helped shape contemporary discourse about the gay family. Finally, she addresses the political implications of chosen families. About the Author: Kath Weston is associate professor of anthropology at Arizona State University West in Phoenix.

The Takatsu family is really close. Kenji Takatsu is in his last year of college. He’s the middle brother. Reiichi is in med school. He’s smart and handsome but he has a rather tough exterior. Miya, the youngest, is a senior in high school. He gets sick easily so he gets everyone’s attention in the family. They all love each other very much, but they all have secrets and desires that are yet to be explored... And everything is sure to get confusing when they all find out that one of them was adopted 21 years ago! With a love triangle amongst them and secrets that are bound to tear them apart, how will this Family possibly survive? This is a sexually explicit YAOI/Manga graphic novel.