The “why” is simple. I am a bisexual woman in a same sex relationship with a bisexual woman, raising an apparently cisgender girl in Brooklyn, New York. I am an avid reader and, so far, the kid is proving to be quite the bibliophile. We are careful about what we read, maybe not so much at the beginning, but once she started talking the curation became more refined. I was told by a friend to just replace the “he” and the “him” with a “she” and a “her” if I wanted more female gender representation. This was advice I appreciated, and still use, even if the answer should be “have more books with female or non-binary protagonists”. The same advice could be applied to seeing bisexuality in books where it is not explicit. In the popular and groundbreaking (for its time) book Heather Has Two Mommies, it is entirely plausible that one or both of Heather’s mommies are bisexual. Factually and anecdotally, we know that bisexual moms and dads exist, so why not in Heather’s family? The same argument can be applied to Newman’s other popular book, Mommy, Mama, and Me. The advice is helpful, but also, it would be nice to not have to project bisexuality onto the characters.

            Do I need to explain why representation matters? Is there a person out there who cannot recall the warmth, the heat that creeps up and out, when seeing someone like yourself in a film or a show or a book? Do I need to explain the not so subtle message that is conveyed to my biracial child when she sees shelves full of white boy heroes? I think we can come to an agreement that representation is important, crucial, and while it is improving in children’s literature, it could be better.