Now vs. Then, Here vs. There

Queer adults and queer children rarely appear together in LGBTQ+ children’s picture books, which tend to focus on lesbian- or gay-parented families or nonbinary/transgender youth. This chapter looks to LGBTQ+ picture book biographies as a notable exception and identifies and analyzes recent biographies of Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin, Gilbert Baker, Pete Buttigieg, Dr. James Barry, Albert D.J. Cahier, and Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson, which provide young readers models of queer adults outside the familial setting. The author suggests that many LGBTQ+ picture book biographies prompt queer children to imagine possible queer adulthoods. In other words, texts about the past influence how queer futures are envisioned. This is particularly true of books that represent queer children who grow into queer adults by telling stories chronologically or through flashbacks, and in doing so present readers with a vision of living queer through the life cycle. The author considers complexities and contradictions that emerge in the field of LGBTQ+ children’s picture books by asking: What queer histories are currently inheritable? How do these representations construct queer adulthood (outside the primarily familial representations of adult queers that tend to circulate in the field)? It is essential to consider what versions and visions of queer adulthood are being passed down to young readers along with how these models of queerness challenge or reinforce regimes of gender and sexual normativity.