Daddy's Roommate was written and illustrated by Michael Willhoite. This is the book my group chose to do our banned/challenged book study on. This book tells the story of a young boy whose parents are divorced. His dad has a new "roommate." Throughout this book, the boy's mother is explaining things that his daddy and daddy's roommate like to do together. They do such things as cook together, watch TV together, and even fight together, but they always make up. At the end of the book, his mom explains that "Daddy and Frank are gay" and that "Being gay is just one more kind of love." This book has large, colorful pictures along with one sentence on each page. It is clearly intended for young children around kindergarten or first grade.
I felt that this book could be good. It was a very direct book that discussed this boy's family. I would use this book as a discussion about different types of families. I do not think it is necessary to discuss whether one should or should not be gay/lesbian, but I do think it is necessary for students to understand that while some people have one parent or divorced parents, some people have gay/lesbian parents. With the exception of the page where it said that the boys daddy and Frank sleep together, I thought this would be a good reference for a discussion on this type of family. The sleeping together part I had a problem with because most books about heterosexual parents don't even mention/show them sleeping together, so why was it necessary here? Other than that, I thought that this book was informative and told enough while seeming to keep the focus on what they do as a family.
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