19 minutes | Tuesday, 4 April 2023
Can you believe that Rumpelstiltskin is still being read in school? It’s a very old story – well past its time if ever there was one.
It’s a story filled with misogyny, greed, and abuse; selling a daughter for financial gain, holding that daughter captive until she performs an impossible task, and all for the benefit of men. If that’s not a terrifying message to send to our kids, I don’t know what is.
Gone are the days of the normalised nuclear family – a mother, father, brother and sister. According to research, stepfamilies are currently the fastest growing family dynamic in the UK and it is estimated that one in three of all families are now stepfamilies or blended families.
In the context of LGBTQ+ books being banned from some libraries in the United States, out of a fear that young people may see them, it's more important than ever to ensure we allow families that exists out of the standard heteronormative nuclear family to be represented in literature. LGBTQ+ youth deserve to know they have a place in the world and are valued.
Graeme Smith chats to the children's author Jennie Guay, who quit her job in financial services to write books that represented her own diverse, blended family.