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For lesbian parents or gay-friendly families looking to introduce their children to the topic of homosexuality, the following books provide a good foundation for learning about familial diversity:

ABC: A Family Alphabet Book by Bobbie Combs (Ages 2-5)
An alphabet book with a twist, ABC: A Family Alphabet Book only features gay and lesbian parents. This book is an excellent way to teach the alphabet and simple words, while presenting children from same-sex families with situations that will make sense to them. The characters in the book are racially diverse, and there is even a handicapped woman featured. The author has also published a gay and lesbian-themed counting book titled 123: A Family Counting Book.

Amy Asks a Question: Grandma, What's A Lesbian? by Jeanne Arnold (Ages 4-8)
One of the only books to incorporate older lesbians, Amy Asks A Question covers issues that may interest late elementary-aged children, including gay pride, long-term relationships, lesbian life experiences, and gay culture. This book would be especially useful for children with gay people in their extended families, since the lesbian featured in the book is Amy's grandmother.

Felicia's Favorite Story by Leslea Newman (Ages 4-8)
From the author of the groundbreaking Heather Has Two Mommies, this is the story of a multi-cultural lesbian family. At bedtime, Felicia--a Hispanic girl--asks her moms to recount where she came from. Soon after they begin, she starts telling her own hyperbolized version of the story. Felicia's Favorite Story is an excellent book that covers topics of adoption and mixed race families.

Is Your Family Like Mine? by Lois Abramchik (Ages 4-8)
In Is Your Family Like Mine?, a young girl discovers that although her friends have very different families, they all love and accept each other. Armetha—the main character in the story—has two moms and her family is African American, making this story especially useful to lesbian women of color.

Molly's Family by Nancy Garden (Ages 4-8)
This wonderful book by Nancy Garden tells the story of a little girl being raised by two lesbian moms. One day in school, Molly's class is told to draw pictures of their family, and her classmates tell her that she can't have two moms. She goes home in tears, and is reassured by her mothers that everyone is different, but they are a real family just like everyone else in her class.

Saturday Is Pattyday by Leslea Newman (Ages 3-8)
The main character in Saturday is Pattyday is a little boy named Frankie whose two moms are divorcing. They decide to share custody of him, and this story discusses his fears of his family breaking up and moving away.

The gay-themed children's literature market has become much more diverse in the fifteen years since Heather Has Two Mommies was published, but there has always been a significant movement afoot to restrict access to these stories. Several states have removed GLBT children's books from the shelves of public schools and libraries, citing parental complaints and inappropriate subject matter. In fact, for many years since they became available, GLBT family books (including Heather Has Two Mommies) have led the American Library Association's list of the children's books people most frequently attempt to have banned.

The controversy over GLBT-themed children's books continues even today. Recently an Oklahoma lawmaker successfully passed a bill through the state House of Representatives that required confining “homosexually-themed books and other age-inappropriate material to areas exclusively for adult access and distribution.” Unfortunately, this is particularly damaging to the early childhood acceptance that books about same-sex parents attempt to portray, as they are sequestered away from their target audience.

Similar moves have occurred with mixed success in other states, and during a U.S. lawmakers' session last summer, North Carolina Congressman Walter Jones proposed a bill that would require states receiving federal funds to form parental approval boards for all new library books, a situation that reeks of censorship and Big Brother selectivity.

Although conservative politicians would like to pretend otherwise, the common thread of all GLBT children's literature is love and families, not “teaching kids to be gay.” For children in both traditional and non-traditional households, books like Heather Has Two Mommies are a meaningful component of early childhood development.

Tolerance and acceptance can be taught, but it helps to start early.

Children who learn at a young age that being different is okay are more likely to accept these differences into adulthood. Whether these stories belong to a kid with gay parents, a child from a nuclear family, or a public library shelf, children's books that feature same-sex families provide a crucial life lesson in tolerance and acceptance. As more children are given access to these GLBT-themed books about love and diversity, hopefully the less any of us will have to worry about having our future generations hidden, legislated, and censored.

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