Author/illustrator of 'Grandads Pride' chosen as artist for the Summer Reading Challenge

@callmeLoretta1 quite. We seem to have a real issue with open minded people who seem to think the boundaries around children are blurred to the point books are showing inappropriate images. What a hyperbolic argument from @Bobbymoore123 that genuine concerns = burn books simply ensuring🙄

Not allowing children to see pornographic material does not = burning books!

@Bobbymoore123 no mention from me about burning books. They are your words, not mine.

Yeah, let's burn the books!

I think the pale blue and pink are just ... a sunset - no intervening white lines and symmetrical pink/blue either side. Sometimes, a sunset is just sunset.

If this man had taken on board the serious issues with his previous attempt, and genuinely wanted to produce material appropriate for children, he wouldn’t be trying to shoehorn trans imagery in all his work using plausible deniability and the willingness of some to facilitate that.

The usual depiction of a sunset in simplistic illustrations is an orangey colour because that is the colour of most notable sunsets.

I have occasionally seen them with a pink haze but in this image it is not immediately obvious what those colours are depicting.

The point here is that if he had taken on board the feedback from before and genuinely wanted to be a children’s author producing high quality and entirely appropriate material, he would not be sailing this close to the wind and including anything that could be interpreted as ‘trans’ imagery.

It may be worth remembering here that the trans flag was created by a man who write about stealing women’s underwear, forced feminisation and sexualising children. This man also was proclaimed to be the first ‘female’ in a US submarine in the days when women had only just been allowed to attend military training academies. As an aside, there are several military female firsts held by men in America.

Anyone serious about not pushing inappropriate themes and stereotypes onto children would actively avoid this flag because of its history and what it represents.

Nobody is asking for him to be ‘cancelled’, just not singled out for promotion above other authors who actually have the ability to do the job.

He has already displayed his unsuitability by a failure to understand appropriate messaging - how many more opportunities do you want him to have?

Why promote him? Isn’t this poster commission ‘inclusive’, transactivist, cool librarians giving him a pat on the back?

What about the other illustrators who might have been chosen? Was not choosing one of them the equivalent of cancelling them?

I misread your post on my phone initially - thought you'd said that 'Grandad's Pride' was a BOOK that the Reading Agency were advocating as part of the summer challenge thing. (I know they don't pick books so I was confused. Must learn to read properly!)

But honestly, if it's just the illustrator - may or may not have been a choice pushed by an agenda, we almost certainly will never know. But - WE don't cancel people because of other work they've done that we find 'problematic', do we? That's what the nutjobs do. He's a perfectly acceptable illustrator of children's books in terms of artistic talent, aesthetics, etc. He's produced the cover art and poster art for this year's challenge. I see no issue. (Unless I see nipple tassels but I don't think I do.) I think the pale blue and pink are just ... a sunset - no intervening white lines and symmetrical pink/blue either side. Sometimes, a sunset is just sunset.

(I looked this chap up and stumbled over his Insta and yes, he is all they/them, keeping Lucy and Yak going singlehandedly, did an Oxford Story Museum 'Adult Late' (making pride flags and talking about being queer ...) - but, so what, I suppose. For the purposes of the Reading Challenge, he's a children's illustrator. I REALLY have issues with Grandad's Pride, as several others here do (for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with books aimed at young children normalising the fact that some of them have a gay family member - nothing wrong with that). But Grandad's Pride doesn't seem to have anything to do with this particular job, and I have to say that I don't think he's a distinctive enough illustrator that some small child is going to see the poster art for this and immediately think 'oh, it's that Grandad's Pride author! This must be about being queer then'. I try not to be disingenuous but I'm buggered if I'm damning a writer or artist for other work they've done, if this is an isolated piece of work we're assessing.

And did what?

I just saw it in another library so it must be the council pushing it

In our authority we have changed the question to "what is your sex?" with the options being Male, Female or Prefer not to say.

For me it meant redoing a whole spreadsheet to accommodate the change as removing one column messed up all my Exel calculations!

I had to smile at the person earlier speculating that a child might "look up the illustrator" of the challenge characters. Can safely say that no child has done that in the entire history of the Summer Reading Challenge!

You are right, my apologies @MagpiePi

That’s very true.

I think I was trying to give that poster the benefit of the doubt, but on reflection, as a society, we know full well the risks and consequences of ignoring these red flags and it ends in abuse of children or women.

So I think I was wrong to excuse that poster defending the man with red flags by assuming that they ‘can’t’ see the problem.

The refusal to acknowledge the problem has the potential for more sinister motivations.

@CornishDaughteroftheDawn I think @Imnobody4 ’won’t’ see it rather than ‘can’t see the red flags.

It is not like we haven’t been here before. Accepting Saville for being a quirky fundraiser for good causes yet clearly creepy. Stephen Ireland at Surrey Pride.

We may well be now on permanent high alert for red flags but that is a good thing. Batting away subliminal messages as innocent has not stood the test of time well in terms of children and safeguarding. Our boundaries are being pushed and the recent bill proposed by the government regarding criminalising parents who won’t affirm gender identity is another thing being pushed. TRAs are pushing our boundaries constantly all dressed up as ‘be kind’.

No, I couldn’t tell. Your response read very much like you are desperate to ignore the large red flags and defend this man working in children’s publishing.

Trouble is, we’ve seen countless times what happens when we ignore warning signs relating to men and children. It never is to the benefit of children. It’s sad you can’t see that.

I think that's sarcasm

Dude, stop gaslighting. You are being ridiculous.

Really shoddy editing - who on earth thinks it’s a good idea for Woodhouse to go ahead and illustrate a woman in a hijab at Pride? Woodhouse must have been laughing at how little pushback he had about the normalisation of grooming throughout. I don’t think it’s an accident that the map is labelled looking at the book as a whole. I work with children’s book illustrators - absolutely everything that’s drawn is a careful choice.

You should have checked it out.

I've just seen Grandad's Pride being showcased at my library, at the entrance. I complained about this book when it came out, and now it's back again. Now what 😫

I am captain and coach at my local rowing club. We have roughly 300 odd members over half of which are women. We also have a large juniors section with girls making up over half that cohort. Sexual offences are overwhelmingly carried out by men, the rate of offending does not magically dissappear when a man decides to identify as a woman. One in four women in the UK have been victims of sexual assault. Thats quite a few potentially vulnerable women with whom safeguarding policies, especially around changing rooms are required. Safeguarding is exclusionary by its nature, good men stay out so bad men stand out. And with all due respect, fully intact biological men trying to force their way into women's changing rooms are bad men, I dont care how they 'identify', you can't tell who is predatory or not. You might be cool with it, many others are not. The idea that we should just park basic safeguarding principles to avoid hurting the feelings of men is mind boggling.

Not necessarily. They could be at a play date and find the book there. They could be gifted it by someone who likes the LGBT+ theme but hasn't flicked through it.

That's why children are so vulnerable to what would be an obvious red flag to most adults.

Young children will only see that though (unless those of you that cite BDSM and fetish are teaching your children about those subjects, which could be seen as a tad hypocritical). 🙄

In other words 'I cowardly won't answer questions I know I can't and/or the answer will make myself look bad.'

Gender Critical means critical of gender stereotypes. That's it.

Yet we are not phobic of 'trans' people as we have no problem with trans men (females). We are phobic of males.

Whoever told you that rubbish is having a lend of you. Or, you made it up on the spot all by yourself.