Review by Booklist Review
PreS-Gr. 2. When Molly draws a picture of her family for her kindergarten class, Tommy jeers at her that no one has two mommies. At first she is angry and hurt, but with the support of her teacher and her loving parents--Mommy (her birth mother) and Mama Lu (her adoptive mother)--she comes to accept her family. What helps her most is seeing many different kinds of families: Tanya has a mommy, a daddy, a grandma, and two brothers; Stephen has no father; Adam has no mother ("Daddy and me!"); some kids are adopted. Wooding's warm, soft-textured colored-pencil pictures show Molly in her lively classroom and in her happy, nurturing home. Less overtly messagey than Leslea Newman's Heather Has Two Mommies 0 (1989), this will open up discussion in many families. Garden is also the author of Holly's Secret0 (2000), about an 11-year-old with lesbian mothers. --Hazel Rochman Copyright 2004 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In Garden's (Annie on My Mind) quietly insightful book, questions about same-sex parenting arise when Molly draws a family portrait for her kindergarten open house. "First she drew Mommy. Then she drew Mama Lu. And then she drew Sam, her puppy." When Tommy sees Molly's picture, he challenges it: "You can't have a mommy and a mama." Soon the other children gather to offer their input. One has a traditional nuclear family, another lives with his father but nobody has two mothers. As Molly's body language goes from defiant to anxious, teacher Ms. Marston overhears the debate and sits down to pacify the situation. "Is Mama Lu visiting?... Is she your aunt?" she asks. When Molly answers no, Ms. Marston tells everyone, "It looks to me as if you can have a mommy and a mama." Garden depicts a credible evolution of Molly's feelings. At first, she is shaken and, even after asking her mothers about their relationship that night, she leaves her family portrait at home the next day. Only after reflecting on her parents' love, and noting the "different kinds of families in her very own class," does Molly willingly display her picture again. Wooding, who details the scenes in feathery pencil shading and soft watercolor wash, pictures an everyday classroom and individualizes all the characters. By referring to diverse families and picturing a multicultural classroom, Garden and Wooding suggest that these conversations can take place just about anywhere, in any small town or big city. Ages 4-8. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 1-To get ready for kindergarten Open School Night, Molly draws a picture of her family to hang on the wall-herself, Mommy, Mama Lu, and their puppy. After seeing the picture, her classmates tell her, "No one has two mommies." Despite her teacher's efforts to be supportive, the child is still concerned. That night, her parents explain, "we decided we had so much love that we wanted to share it with a baby." Thus, one of them is her birth mother; the other an adoptive parent. Still, Molly leaves her drawing home the next day. With further matter-of-fact reassurance by her teacher and the budding understanding that all families are different, Molly, and indeed the whole class, grows to accept her own family, and she proudly hangs her picture on the wall. While the children in the story are not shy about expressing their feelings, the author diffuses any tension by remaining focused on logic: Molly's family is as she claims. By tying this specific household to the general diversity within all families, Garden manages to celebrate them all. The soft colored-pencil drawings with their many realistic details depict a room full of active kindergartners. There is a squat sweetness to the characters as they work together to make everything look and feel right.-Martha Topol, Traverse Area District Library, Traverse City, MI (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
(Primary) Fresh from their royal wedding (see King & King, rev. 7/02), King Bertie and King Lee are honeymooning in the jungle, where they enjoy the scenery as well as the sight of so many happy animal families. So they are pleased to discover upon their return to the palace that a little jungle girl has stowed away in their suitcase to present herself for adoption. The collage illustrations are a lively jumble, but the story is rambling and incoherent, lacking the folktale structure that made the first book about this pair so slyly effective. Molly's Family is a far more straight-forward address to the virtues of gay parenting. When kindergartner Molly draws a picture of her Mommy and her Mama Lu, classmate Tommy objects: ""That's not a family."" Crisis, small-scaled, ensues, as does a comforting chat with the mommies, and a word on ""all kinds of families"" from the teacher. While the story, illustrated with warm but generic colored-pencil drawings, is easier to follow than the sortie of the two kings, it's overly purposive and awfully bland. Does virtue have to taste that way? [Review covers these titles: King & King & Family and Molly's Family.] (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
In this long-overdue alternative to LeslÉa Newman's groundbreaking, but one-dimensional Heather Has Two Mommies (1989), a kindergartener has a quiet crisis when a classmate confidently informs her that she can't have both a mommy and a Mama. But Molly does, and Tommy's comment not only requires some calming explanations at home from Molly's Mommy and Mama Lu, but sparks an eye-opening conversation about different family situations in class, too. Staid page design, plus generic figures portrayed in smudgy colors, with some awkwardly drawn hands and faces, will tell viewers from the outset that they're in for a theme-centered tale--still, Garden makes her points lightly enough to leave only a few bruises, and Molly regains her equanimity in time for the episode to end on an upbeat note. The real question is why are there still so few Mollys for child readers to encounter? (Picture book. 5-8) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
