DADDY & DADA

Rumi wants you to meet her family.

Rumi is 4, and she has two dads (the Daddy and Dada of the title), a little brother named Xander, and a dog named Betty. Daddy sings with her. Dada reads to her. (Xander likes to pull her hair.) Her friends have families of different types—some with a mom and a dad and others with just one parent. One boy in her neighborhood lives with just his grandmother and her cat. Rumi sees families of all sizes and makeups when she walks down the street with hers. She has two sets of grandparents (both seem to be heterosexual pairings). Her family also includes Uncle TyTy and Uncle RyRy (she danced at their wedding) and Aunt Katie and Uncle Jeremy and their kids. One of her friends calls Rumi her sister, and Rumi’s dads think that is great because friends can be family too. Now Rumi wants to hear about your family. Brockington and Webster, who head a two-dad family themselves, have laid out a beautifully kid-friendly introduction to an early-21st-century constellation of family shapes told in a believable kid voice. May’s simple, pleasant, smile-filled cartoon illustrations are colorful and show families that are not only varied by parent number (never more than two) and gender presentation, but also by race. One character uses a wheelchair; another wears a hijab. Rumi and her family all present White.

A straightforward and nonjudgmental validation of many LGBTQ+ and other family structures.