Every school to receive Welsh and English language books for kids celebrating joy of same-sex families
The publishing arm of a Welsh university has released a new Welsh and English language range of children’s books on the subject of same-sex families.
Every primary school in Wales will receive one book free, as part of a partnership between publishers Peniarth, Stonewall Cymru and the Welsh Government.
‘Early One Morning’ and ‘Bedtime Not Playtime!’ are translations by Elin Haf and Mari Siôn of books by the Spanish author Lawrence Schimel and Elīna Brasliņa from Latvia.
These books were originally written by Lawrence Schimel in response to an increasing demand to expand the book market so as to include stories that contain families of LGBT+ backgrounds.
Peniarth, which has released the books at the Urdd Eisteddfod this week, was established in 2009 as the University of Wales Trinity Saint David’s publishing wing.
Lawrence Schimel said: “There are other children’s books that portray LGBT lives, but these usually relate to being different or overcoming homophobia.
“Elīna and I felt that there was a need for more books that celebrate the joy of being gay, and contain jolly stories of life in single-sex families.”
The books have since been printed in over 30 countries and languages including, now, Wales and in Welsh and English.
Elin mentioned: “Having chatted with Lawrence, I was hankering to create English and Welsh versions of his books. I liked the simplicity of the story and how familiar the stories would be, be they domestic, humdrum or everyday stories.
“As a parent in a civil partnership, whose youngest of three children is 18 years old, I can state that there was certainly nothing like this in Welsh when my children were small.”
‘Inclusive’
The Welsh and English versions are the first to use ‘Mam’ and ‘Mami’/ ‘Dad’ and ‘Dadi’, and by now, other languages have also adopted these terms.
Elin and Mari’s wish is to see these books, as they get published, reaching the schools of Wales, seeing the characters spring to life, and teachers and children enjoying them.
Dr Lowri Lloyd, from Canolfan Peniarth said: “It is truly a privilege to publish these books for the youngest of children in both English and Welsh. They are simple, good-humoured and interesting books that contain same-sex parents as a natural part of the story.
“Our hope is that parents, schools and anyone involved with small children will use them to give children of all backgrounds access to stories that reflect the diversity of our present society. Being able to distribute one copy free of charge to every primary school in Wales is certainly a significant step towards making this a reality.”
Iestyn Wyn from Stonewall Cymru added:” Ensuring that LGBTQ+ families are represented in our literature and culture is vital, particularly in children and young people’s literature and Welsh literature.
“Only by reflecting on contemporary Wales in our literature, we can take steps forward to undo the decades of under-representation that LGBTQ+ people have experienced. We are therefore very excited to be able to work with Penarth to distribute a free copy to all schools of these special books.”
Hannah Blythyn MS, Deputy Minister for Social Partnerships said: “It is fantastic that classrooms in Wales will have access to bilingual and inclusive literature which reflects the diversity of Wales. This aligns with our commitment in the LGBTQ+ Action Plan to promote resources to help families and teachers across the country”
Support our Nation today
For the price of a cup of coffee a month you can help us create an independent, not-for-profit, national news service for the people of Wales, by the people of Wales.
Ok, nothing much has changed since the early seventies when coal and oil industry produced books for primary school use extolling their industries.
i do so hope that these books are optional rather than forced on every school, as utimatly it smacks of personal bias and propoganda which has no place in primary school.
As far as I understand it, LGBT+ is an umbrella term for a movement of people who just want to live their lives free from oppression and hatred, equal to everyone else. I am pretty sure they are not a multinational fracking corporation whose CEO is RuPaul.
If saying “Millie has two mums” is propaganda to you, then so is “Peter, Jane and Pat the dog went on adventure to the seaside with mummy and daddy”. Pretty soon there are NO books in schools school.
Sick of this? Then push for the formation of a national conservative party!
Wonder if the kids are told what they had for lunch………………….
Would a national Conservative party impose a “don’t say gay” law like in Florida? Because actively stigmatising 10% of their population is working really well for them over there!
I guess we Welsh are not as inclusive as we sometimes claim.
Read the Florida Bill, Llinos. It bans sex Ed for under 7s and criminalises discussions of a sexual nature (or thy pertains to gender identity) that specifically procludes parents. It includes cis people. It has nothing to do with the LGBT community. Both left and right have their moral panics. You’ve fallen for one.
Why thank you for patronising me. I was clearly completely unaware of the sophistry you mention because I have come to a different conclusion to you.
I have fallen for nothing
Ah, OK. Then you conclusion is wrong. You referred to it in by the same term used by every American blue checked celeb and journo as opposed to discussing anything at all to do with the law itself, so you can see how I would conclude that.The law is actually very clear (many laws aren’t, this legislation is). I thought it would be better to conclude that you had simply read about it and drawn a conclusion (no shame in that) but now you have claimed to have read the legislation, it is only fair to conclude that you have… Read more »
Not really. you are simply regurgitating nonsense dressed up as sophistry to justify your prejudices. The law absolutely does not ban discussion of Cis relationships. You have not read the law you assert that I should read. This is the danger of getting your “facts” from edited highlights from Reddit. I’m guessing r/incels?
But again thank you for the patronising sexist pat on the head, although I can’t help but feel it would have been more effective had you at least been right. Maybe it’s your age. The world has moved on.
Not quite sure what you mean by “dressed up as sophistry” (maybe that I am engaged in dressing up language and thus being a sophist?). For all who may read this thread and the sake of clarity, here’s the bill summary from Florida Govs website: The bill (Chapter 2022-22, L.O.F.) reinforces a parent’s fundamental right to make decisions regarding the care and upbringing of his or her child in the public school setting. The bill requires each district school board to adopt procedures for notifying a student’s parent if there is a change in services or monitoring related to the student’s… Read more »
Nobody’s going to read your tedious diatribe and cut and paste stuff you have just looked up.
I admire your persistence in continually harassing me trying to beat me down with constant argumentum ab auctoritate fallacy (except you have no credible autorotate) but as Wales Online posts every month or so, your endless 2@ery is fel rhech mewn pot jam
Won’t be long before some previously unknown group will be given airtime on the Welsh media denouncing this “outrage”. I hope for once the media do their job and also enquire as to who these opponents are – always evangelical/fundamentalist Christian groups who also believe abortion and same sex marriage should be banned and who hide behind a harmless sounding name.
Do you mean in opposition to the LBQT+-? Taliban?
No thanks, as a parent this is my job
Oh okay. So how do you address inclusivity with your kids? Personally I would have been grateful if my kids’ school had informed them of matters relating to inclusivity. But Christian fundamentalist headmaster so…
Did you not do it?
Coming after me hard aren’t you? Of course I did. You should try it. Assuming you can understand inclusivity and why it is important
Not at all coming after you, hard or otherwise. I just think that there’s a middle ground here that you’re missing by being too trigger happy in ascribing bigotry where there is none and overstating the role teachers should have in relation to children. Direct and prescriptive moral lessons should never be in the purview of teachers. Open discussion, storytelling and a generalised, Socratic approach to social studies/civics/history/sex ed led us to a society that is the most accepting and open the world has ever seen. My point was simply to point out that your ideals, your moral code and… Read more »
Middle ground fallacy is not relevant here. Neither have I been “trigger happy”. I have not ascribed bigotry where none exists. I have signposted it where I have seen it. Often bigots cannot see or try to hide their own bigotry. I’ve barely made reference to techers at all let alone overstated anything about them. The books do not ascribe direct and prescriptive moral lessons. I found your bombastic defence of your coming after me hard as “simply pointing out blah blah TL:DR…” entertaining but rather dishonest. My kids have always been welcome to diverge from mine. They are grown… Read more »
“TL:DR” goes a long way in making sense of your responses. I have tried to be as cordial as I can – you make a lot of mean-spirited assumptions about me and other posters. I understand your passion but it seems a tad misplaced. These particular books seem fine – haven’t read them, but seem Ok. Nobody is questioning your ability as a mother. I’d like to think I’m speaking common sense; I am always willing to learn but just as willing to disagree and challenge when appropriate. Your approach is very isolating, taking a mantle of “good guy” that… Read more »
Reading is clearly not your strong point then old man?
Oh well. Not my problem. Move on. I’m done with you trying to rescue your tattered credibility
You wrote TL:DR, I was quoting you… you must be trolling now. If so, brava. Ya got me bamboozled for a hot second.
You just can’t take a hint can you? Or a direct request to get lost. Should I be scared to leave my house now?
More informative than an English propaganda Jubilee book you’d have to agree. .
…Depends , I suppose, whether you deem the information appropriate.
“Millie’s mum was fun. So was her other mum”. Shocking stuff eh? To the conversion camps!
Da iawn
Personally I think it’s disgraceful. These are primary school children aged from 7 to 11. Whatever your views on the virtual alphabet of groups that are fighting for the recognition of their own particular style of sexual practice / gender assignment we’re talking very young children here. Leave them alone, they’ll contend with it when they’re older.
They are characters in books. They exist. They are not trying to teach anyone anything other than that. Don’t worry. Your children won’t catch “the gay” from reading these. Although as a parent you do have the legal right to meet with the headmaster and state your opposition to inclusivity and kindness and demand such limitations as you want on your child’s education if it clashes with your indoctrination plans. Parental brainwashing is still legal in the UK. And hey, if your kid catches the Trans, you can always send them away to conversion camp where you can crush their… Read more »
Trans people exist, gay people exist. They should have the same human rights everyone does. Now we have the obvious stated, can people express concern regarding the more fringe elements of this pressure movement (medicalisation of children, erosion of parental rights, social contagion via the Internet) without the hyperventilating from both sides.? A lack of access to this book won’t sterilise a child, won’t put them at risk of serious abuse by arranging extracurricular meetings with the specific request not to inform parents. Having these particular books in the school library is no problem at all either. The above statements… Read more »
Do you wear a tinfoil hat? The obvious needed to be stated CLEARLY since many of you (and by you, I mean YOU) seemed to take the opportunity to create yet another strawmen of some LGBT+ conspiracy to take over the world.
Mentioning that same sex couples exist is not “the wacky ideas of the fringiest of the fringe”.
Are you listening to the voices in your head again?
You either didn’t read my comment or choose to purposely misunderstand it. To call a fringe element “fringe” is the definitively opposite of creating a straw man, Llinos. You don’t seem stupid, and I mean that sincerely, but the projection here is incredible – try not to cling so closely to your ideological stand point and you may understand the perspective I’m coming from. There is no LGBT conspiracy, nobody claimed there is one. There are badly motivated actors who seek to claim the badge of LGBT, claim to speak on behalf of the community as though it is a… Read more »
I’ve read enough of your comments. It becomes depressing after a while to realise people like you still exist. Bigotry is still around clearly, because, well, Brexit and the “Transwomen just want to assault women in toilets and win sporting medals” trope. But the narcissism of you! Telling me what I should and shouldn’t do, act and think like you are the male equivalent of the Oracle of Delphi. Implying that my “ideological standpoint (of simply being decent to people and not being a bigot) is keeping me from seeing your golden thread of divine wisdom! Stating half-cocked opinions as… Read more »
Diar annwyl! How do you know any of those adjectives apply to me? The assumption that my simply bringing facts, positing a middle ground (remember what I said about Trans and gay rights before?) is “simply working really hard to hide the fact that you are quire unpleasant” is astonishing, Llinos. I can safely say that you aren’t working at all hard to hide your (hopefully situational) unpleasantness. I haven’t once told you “what you should and shouldn’t do” (not at all my place), made no assumptions about your personal life, made no unsubstantiated accusations of bigotry, agreed with you… Read more »
Not facts. Retrospective back pedalling. You find me standing my ground “unpleasant” then? Oh if only my job was to make life pleasant for a man who has persistently patronised, misrepresented and tried to dismiss me. I am not interested in your attempts to gaslight me when the evidence of your words are written on thispage. This is not the Depp Heard s***show and I am not interested in any more sophistic essays from you so just leave me the hell alone.
I respect you standing your ground, don’t like the ad hominems or the vitriol, the aspersions cast on my private life and character based simply on me disagreeing with you and the assumption as to my supposedly advanced age hits my still-remaining wisdom teeth for a rather sharp ringing tone. Disagreement isn’t patronising, please look up sophistry and gaslighting is very hard to do on a public forum. I don’t think anybody is having a go at you, you have been (by your own admission in the comment section below) “uncharacteristically aggressive” and I have tried to respond cordially, but… Read more »
The aspersions cast on your private life? What? You mean where I called you a mean old man? Where I suggested you post on platforms frequented by men who are known to want women to be submissive to their male betters? WHEREVER could I have got that impression from? All I said originally was that books where two parents were of the same gender were harmless and that anyone who had a problem with this was not “thinking of the children” but of their own prejudices and then you (YOU) and a bunch of other homophobes piled on! And you… Read more »
I know a child “aged 7-11” being raised by a same-sex couple. Why should families like his be banned from books?
Because they’re in primary school. Other book are freely available
So books containing opposite sex parents should also be banned?
Do you have a list of all the books you want banned?
The schools are getting these books, not each individual kid (unlike the Jubilee book of brainwashing.
Representation matters and those kids of same sex parents would probably enjoy seeing someone with a similar life to them.
Shrieking about having things forced down ones throats (fnar fnar!) or indoctrinating kids is unhelpful hysteria. “The gays” are not on a recruiting drive. This is not a “wokeist” agenda and if anyone uses the word wokeiam they don’t understand the word. It’s just a thing
If the children of single sex parents would, as you claim, probably enjoy seeing someone with a similar life to them, then by all means give THEM the books.
Yes. Kind of what I was saying. They are AVAILABLE in the school for those children (and ideally the children on NON-homophobic parents) to read. Although I suspect you mean to the exclusion of what you consider to be “normal” parents. I mean sorry to put words into your mouth and apologies if I have misread you, but the Homophobic+ community is very good at using subtle implication and passive-aggressive subtext to try and attack people who are not “normal” like them. The article suggests these books are not “pushing the woke agenda”. They simply have characters who have either… Read more »
My my! Aren’t we getting in a tizz? Homophobic +, woke agenda, everybody’s favourite current punching bag, bogeyman, Trans. You seem to have all the fighting talk terminology to hand! You have to accept the fact that occasionally folk will disagree with your beliefs. More than occasionally I fear, given your sense of outrage.
No one’s suggesting a literary pyre, calm down! I believe that it’s more to do with the age of the children involved rather than the contents of the book.
Sexist pig as well as a homophobe are you Phil?. “Getting in a tizz” am I? “Calm down” should I? Trying to paint me as a silly ditzy girl getting all in a fluster? You have all the incel patter in this post silly little Philly. You know without a doubt it has nothing to do with the age of the kids “involved” with reading a book that says “ok look Billy has two dads”. Because it is only the likes of you who are complaining about it and it is plainly obvious why. But I do wonder why so… Read more »
My my. All the downvotes on this one. It seems we are not as inclusive a nation as I thought. How thoroughly disappointing. If this is for my pre-emptive strike and uncharacteristically aggressive language I will take it and learn from it. But if you downvotes the post because you oppose children simply being made aware that homosexual parents exist, then shame on you. You are not the welcoming inclusive Cymro you might claim to be. At the school gates I used to see several parents from such relationships. The children didn’t blink. But then perhaps their “normal” parents hadn’t… Read more »
So the inclusion of LGBT-themed reading materials in primary schools supercedes the freeing of our nation for you? I learned last year that many people can walk And chew bubblegum. Some people want to do one, others do not. But most can do both. This sort of smear is exactly why Wales remains where she does – your own personal (or rather, social media echo chamber mandated) version of Wales isn’t what we’re fighting for. It isn’t mine either. Freedom in and of itself.
If a book can mention a child having a mother and a father, why not mention a child having two mothers or two fathers? Have you all forgotten that there are actual children with same-sex parents? Or actual gay children? That isn’t sexual or inappropriate, it’s no different to straight parents and straight children. Schools are supposed to teach our children how the world works in an age-appropriate way – making sure that our children know that gay people exist is an important part of their education, and can save them much pain if they find out that they, themselves,… Read more »
I totally agree. It’s not difficult is it? I am sure that most NC posters know this and have no issue with such things. But as you can see, there’s a few dinosaurs yet to go extinct. (I probably haven’t helped matters either though by not speaking gently “as a woman ought”, but it’s just tiresome to try and nurture a lump of mud)
It’s normal to have a parent of either sex. That’s how children are conceived and it’s the best way to bring up a child.