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Evan's Beard
David Johnson
2006
Book
A photographic picture book about a child, facial hair, and two mothers, recorded in an LGBTQ-family book checklist.
Overview
Evan's Beard is a 2006 photographic picture book credited to David Johnson. The local catalog describes a young Black child with shaving cream on his face, two white mothers, and a sequence of photographs showing different kinds of beards and mustaches. A public checklist of children's books featuring LGBT family members also lists the title as a picture book from Lulu.com with two mothers. Because the public trail is thin, this record stays close to the cataloged object. Its value is in showing how small and self-published books could place same-sex parents into ordinary childhood play rather than into an explanatory lesson about family difference.[1][2]
Ordinary Play
The local description presents two mothers in passing rather than as the central problem of the story. Evan's play with shaving cream, imagined beards, and drawing on the final page gives the book a tactile, participatory structure. That ordinary framing matters in a collection often concerned with whether books explain family diversity directly or simply make diverse families part of a child's day.[1][2]
Gendered Body Language
A beard is a small subject with a large social charge. The local description says the child is told that his mothers do not have beards and that he may grow facial hair when he is older. That makes the book useful for thinking about how children's books handle gendered bodies, family roles, and curiosity without turning the two-mother household into an exception that must be defended.[1]
Self-Published Family Books
The public checklist places Evan's Beard with several Lulu.com and small-press titles from the 2000s. This matters because LGBTQ-family representation did not move only through major publishers. Families, educators, and community writers also used print-on-demand services to make books for specific needs. Such items can be bibliographically fragile even when they are culturally useful.[2][3]
Timeline
Object Trail
The current public trail identifies the title, creator, date, publisher, and two-mother family category, while the held copy can provide fuller object description.
2006
Lulu.com picture book
The title appears in a public LGBTQ-family children's-book checklist.
Explore Connections
Browse direct links, shared themes, and nearby publication dates.
Linked records
Emma and the Magic Moose
Both titles appear in the same public checklist as 2006 Lulu.com picture books featuring two mothers.
References [2]
Mom, Mama, and Me
Both titles place two mothers in picture-book form, but Evan's Beard appears to use photography and bodily play rather than a conventional family-introduction narrative.
References [2]
Emma and Meesha My Boy
Both records are useful for comparing books where same-sex parents appear inside ordinary activities rather than as the explicit lesson of the book.
References [2]
Shared themes
Emma and the Magic Moose
A fantasy picture book about a girl, a magic journey, and a return to her two mothers.
Your Family, My Family
An early many-family picture book that includes a child whose family has two mothers.
Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin
A photographic picture book about a girl, her father, and her father's male partner.
Heather Has Two Mommies
A 1989 picture book about a child with two mothers, represented here through its In Other Words first-edition history and later public life.
Nearby dates
Aitor tiene dos mamas
A Spanish edition of a Basque two-mother family story about school bullying, language, and public recognition.
At My House What Makes a Family is Love
An AuthorHouse picture book presenting many kinds of families, including two-mother and two-father households.
Buster's Sugartime
A Postcards from Buster book tie-in connected to a public broadcasting dispute over two-mother family representation.
Emma and the Magic Moose
A fantasy picture book about a girl, a magic journey, and a return to her two mothers.
Citation
Evan's Beard. David Johnson. Lulu.com, 2006. Tarpey-Schwed LGBT Families Children's Book Special Collection, Mechanics' Institute. Collection ID: KB-027.
Showing Plain text citation format.
Sources
- Local collection catalog record for Evan's Beard · catalog
- Checklist of Children's Books Featuring LGBT Family Members · bibliography
- Lulu, publishing platform overview · institutional