The Day They Put a Tax on Rainbows

Overview

The Day They Put a Tax on Rainbows is Johnny Valentine and Lynette Schmidt’s 1992 Alyson Wonderland collection of original fairy tales. Library of Congress records describe three stories that use traditional-tale elements and nontraditional families; the local catalog identifies same-sex-parent households inside the individual plots. Its importance lies in form. Rather than offering a realistic explanation of gay or lesbian parenting, the book places children with two fathers or two mothers inside magic rings, quests, dragons, royal folly, and rainbow imagery. The book is also part of the Sasha Alyson / Johnny Valentine network that includes The Duke Who Outlawed Jelly Beans and The Daddy Machine. A Lambda Literary Awards finalist record gives the title a public reception trail, while the restricted public scan cautions against overquoting story details without inspecting the Mechanics copy.^[2][3][7][1]

A Second Valentine Collection

The local catalog presents the book as the second Valentine and Schmidt fairy-tale collection after The Duke Who Outlawed Jelly Beans. External records confirm the same author name, illustrator, imprint, and early-1990s publication sequence. That continuity matters because the book does not stand alone. It belongs to an Alyson Wonderland experiment in making original fairy tales where same-sex-parent families appear inside genre plots, not only in domestic explanation books. Sasha Alyson’s publishing network gives that experiment institutional shape.^{[1][2][3][16][9]}

Fairy-Tale Machinery

The fairy-tale machinery is central. Library of Congress describes three original stories using traditional-tale elements, and Miami University’s picture-book database identifies a magic ring, undersea transformation, a dragon quest, and the king’s absurd tax on rainbows. Those structures give the book its interpretive value. It uses quest, enchantment, royal authority, and reversal to make family difference part of a story world rather than the entire subject of the book. The result is fantasy with social recognition built into its plot mechanics.^[2][5]

Distributed Family Representation

The local catalog identifies same-sex-parent representation across the individual tales: Clara’s father and Brandon in The Ring of Consequence, Nicholas, Jesse, and Jacob with two fathers in The Three Gifts, and Peter with two mothers in the title story. Because the scan was access restricted in this research pass, those story-level details should remain tied to the local catalog until the physical book is inspected. Even so, the distribution across tales is important: representation is embedded in several narrative worlds.^[1][4]

Rainbow Double Register

Rainbow imagery works in two registers. Within the stories it belongs to fairy-tale and weather logic: treasure at the end of the rainbow and a comic royal attempt to tax something no one should own. In the broader LGBTQ-family publishing context of 1992, rainbow imagery was also culturally available through the post-1978 rainbow flag tradition. The strongest claim is therefore resonance rather than authorial certainty. The title lets readers hold fairy-tale absurdity and LGBTQ cultural symbolism together.^[1][5][19]

Timeline

1. 1978Rainbow flag historyRainbow symbolism enters LGBTQ public culture in San Francisco.^[19]
2. 1980sAlyson networkAlyson builds a gay and lesbian publishing business that later supports children’s books.^[12][9]
3. 1991The Duke Who Outlawed Jelly BeansThe earlier Valentine and Schmidt fairy-tale collection appears.^[1]
4. 1992PublicationAlyson Wonderland publishes The Day They Put a Tax on Rainbows.^[2][3]
5. 1992Alyson access pressurePublic sources document broader access pressure around Alyson children’s titles.^[13][14]
6. 1993Lambda finalistThe Lambda Literary Awards list the title as a finalist for the 1992 award year.^[7]
7. 1995Reading-list afterlifeSFGate groups the title with books for children in gay and lesbian-headed families.^[15]
8. 2004Related reissuesRelated Valentine titles are reissued, while no Tax on Rainbows reissue surfaced in this research pass.^[10]

Johnny Valentine Fairy-Tale Network

The collection can connect Valentine’s fairy-tale and fantasy books across Alyson Wonderland.

Citation

The Day They Put a Tax on Rainbows. Johnny Valentine; illustrated by Lynette Schmidt. Alyson Wonderland, 1992. Tarpey-Schwed LGBT Families Children's Book Special Collection, Mechanics' Institute. Collection ID: KB-016.

Sources

Cover image from Open Library.

1. Local collection catalog record for The Day They Put a Tax on Rainbows · catalog
2. Library of Congress MARC record for The Day They Put a Tax on Rainbows · library
3. Open Library record for The Day They Put a Tax on Rainbows · library
4. Internet Archive metadata for The Day They Put a Tax on Rainbows · library
5. Miami University Children's Picture Book Database record · bibliography
6. Mallory Books listing for The Day They Put a Tax on Rainbows · bookseller
7. Lambda Literary Awards 1992 finalists · award
8. Publishers Weekly, O Pioneers! · trade
9. Publishers Weekly profile of Alyson Books · trade
10. Publishers Weekly children's notes on Johnny Valentine reissues · trade
11. Big Brother Mouse profile of Sasha Alyson · creator
12. EBSCO research starter on Alyson publishing · reference
13. Los Angeles Times archive on Alyson access pressure · news
14. ALA Gay and Lesbian Task Force newsletter, fall 1992 · ala
15. SFGate reading list for children of gay parents · news
16. Our Family Coalition banned-books reading list · bibliography
17. Moller, LGBTQIA-inclusive literacy instruction · scholarship
18. Sapp, Reading Children's Books About Gay and Lesbian Parents · scholarship
19. GLBT Historical Society rainbow flag history · reference
20. WorldCat record for The Day They Put a Tax on Rainbows · library