LGBTQ children’s picture book published in Russia with 18+ rating

A children’s picture book depicting same-sex parents has been published in Russia and given an ’18+’ label.

The book, Mothers, Fathers and Kids from Dusk till Dawn, is Dmitriy Kuzmin’s Russian translation of the original stories by American author Lawrence Schimel and illustrator Elīna Brasliņa. The book is a combination of two titles- Early One Morning, following a young boy in the morning with his two mothers; and Bedtime, Not Playtime!, following a little girl with two fathers at bedtime.

Hungarian officials fined a bookshop for selling the same book earlier this year, and now Sphere, a charitable foundation that campaigns for LGBTQ rights, has decided to publish it in Russia.

Sphere knew that Russia’s 2013 law banning ‘gay propaganda’ meant that none of the country’s traditional publishing houses would release the book, so it took matters into its own hands and gave the book an 18+ rating in response to the Russian law.

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“[This] is a book that is not only about LGBTQ+ families, but for them. In that sense, this book stands on its own as the very first of its kind in Russia,” said the organisation, also explaining that the law forced them to print the book with an 18-plus label. “In other words, because of the existing legislature there was no other choice but to publish a children’s book for adults only … This is the ridiculousness of the propaganda law, which only raises discrimination against LGBT+ and limits access to information.”

Sphere has said in a statement: “This book is the epitome of the … law’s absurdity. This law does not protect anyone from anything. Rather, it acts as an instrument of 1) limiting access to information, and 2) legitimisation of discrimination in the forms of homophobia and transphobia in the society – all while real families, with real children, are suffering from it.”

With almost 60K signatures so far the Sphere petition against the Russian ‘LGBTQ Propaganda’ law is also picking up steam.

The author Schimel said that he and illustrator Brasliņa were both very happy to donate their book to the campaign, “because we both are strongly opposed to the Russian government’s persecution of LGBT people”.

“Hate should be given no quarter in the plural, diverse, global world in which we live,” said Schimel. “These LGBT propaganda laws do not protect children from anything, nor are our lives anything that anyone needs to be ‘protected’ from … That’s why this campaign to repeal this noxious law in Russia is so important. Not just for kids who might be in same-sex families or discovering their own LGBT identity, but for all kids to see these families that exist in the world – even in Russia – and to prevent a generation from growing up brainwashed by this political homophobia.”