Molly's Family

Garden, N. (2004). Molly's family. New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux.

http://www.pinkbooks.com/mollysfamilycover.htm

Molly’s Family is a children’s book based on a kindergarten class getting ready for an Open School Night where everybody’s family is welcomed to attend. The students in this classroom draw pictures of their families but when Molly draws hers, Tommy tells her that her drawing is not of a family because you can’t have a mommy and a mama. Molly becomes confused by Tommy’s statement because she’s the only one in the class with two moms. Molly doesn’t know if she wants to put her picture up and display it for Open School Night if it’s so much different than the rest of the student’s. However, Molly discusses her concerns with the teacher and her two moms and realizes that just because her family is different than other students doesn’t mean that her family isn’t happy, loving or a real family. Molly sees the variety of families of the students in her class and realizes how loving and real her family is to her.

Molly’s Family is a book that has caused controversy in allowing this in classrooms. People have argued that an elementary school should not push the issues of the LGBT community and sexual orientation on children. I however believe that this is a fantastic book to include in an elementary classroom setting. Although the main character has two mothers, I think the main points in this children’s book do not have to do with homosexuality. This book tells a great story of how different each family can look from one another and steers away stereotypes that all families look like the American styled family with one dad, one mom, children and pets. A majority of families have only one mom, one dad, divorced parents, homosexual parents, or maybe no parents at all but live with a grandparent. This book reaches out to the diversity of families so children in all families can relate and see that their family is perfectly normal. This book also portrays the importance of love and happiness in a family rather than the structure of the family. It states a clear, important message that is it doesn’t matter how the structure looks but what matters is there are people in your family that love and care for you. In our society, a lot of times we see past this point and worry about placing labels on people.

The author of this book has recently won the Margaret A. Edwards Award for Lifetime Achievement in Writing for Young Adults. After reading this book, I can definitely understand why she is the award-winning author of many books for children and young adults. She reaches a variety of children in this book that can relate to this content.

This story shows a different kind of family that is usually portrayed as the norm. Molly’s Family displays a way of explaining to children that families come in all different make-ups and that the make-ups do not matter which is very important for a child to understand. These are the reasons for why I believe this book is fantastic to include on our shelves as teachers.