In the Journal of Children’s Literature, Stephen Adam Crawley did a study about representation of transgender children in picture books. With a limit of picture books, there is an implication that these are children’s books for younger ages. Crawley’s conclusion is that there is a “preponderance of White, middle class characters living in households with two cisgender, heterosexual parents” (36). My prickly self wants to raise my hand and ask, “But how do you know they are heterosexual?” Heteronormative, sure, but how does the reader emphatically know that both parents are heterosexual? Crawley says this is in alignment with conclusions drawn by other analyses of LGBTQ inclusive children’s literature which state that the dominant social groups are almost always the ones that are most represented (36). The existence of fantasy picture books that use animals instead of people are recognized by the author as being beneficial, but also as failing to help young kids see that “their lives exist and are possible now”, instead of in the future or in a fantastical world (30). In an article about anthropomorphism and multiculturality in children’s books, Bow argues that many children might not even find the animals relatable, which would make the idea of children finding and then enacting any kind of moral learned from these books less likely to occur (343). Bow also argues that these animal proxies are in place to “further the paradoxical belief that we are simultaneously all the same and all different”, revealing the perhaps unconscious pressures adults feel to promote diversity (329). I think the presence of both would be great; picture books with animals who are bisexual and picture books with people who are bisexual should line our shelves. Even better would be if the animal books contained intros that helped parents explain the differences seen in the animal world and how they translate to real life. This could even help teachers and educators who might be reading a book just to read it without thinking through the benefits of explaining the real world implications. And if you have an inquisitive child who is just learning to read, an intro with some probing or thought provoking questions could really make the kid think beyond the cute pictures.