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Mechanics' Institute

Tarpey-Schwed LGBT Families Children's Book Special Collection

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Cover of We Belong Together.

Cover image from Todd Parr's publisher page.

Image source

We Belong Together

Creator

Todd Parr

Date

Published 2007

Format

Book

A Todd Parr adoption picture book that includes two-mother and two-father families within a broader account of belonging.

AdoptionMany kinds of familiesTwo mothersTwo fathersTodd Parr
Contact About AccessBack to catalog

Overview

We Belong Together is Todd Parr's 2007 picture book about adoption and family belonging. Its repeated sentences explain adoption through shared home, care, help, and love, while Parr's illustrations include several family forms, including two-mother and two-father families. The item is strongest as part of the Parr cluster already anchored by The Family Book. It does not have the same public challenge trail as that title, and its same-sex-parent representation is one element within a broader adoption book. That limited placement is still useful. The record shows how adoption, chosen family, and same-sex-parent visibility could be joined in a mainstream picture-book format for very young readers, without turning the family structure into a separate lesson.[10][11][1][12]

Adoption In Repeated Sentences

The official publisher description presents We Belong Together as an adoption book about sharing home and heart. The book's structure is built from repeated explanations of why adults and children belong together: someone needed care, someone had care to give, and a family was formed. That simple repeated syntax matters because it gives young readers a stable way to hear adoption as relationship rather than deficit. The local catalog's account of the opening sentence confirms that belonging is established immediately.[10][11][1]

Many Adoptive Families

The local catalog records that Parr's adoption scenes include traditional mother-father families, a two-mother family, and a two-father family. That makes the book more than a general adoption story. It places same-sex-parent families within the visual field of adoption rather than treating them as an exception. For the collection, this is a useful bridge between adoption-origin books, many-family books, and LGBTQ-family books. It also keeps the interpretation precise: the subject is adoption and family belonging, with same-sex parents visible inside that frame.[1][10][3]

Parr's Visual Directness

Parr's pictures use intense color, simple figures, and direct emotional cues. In an adoption book, that visual system has a particular effect: it keeps adult legal or biographical complexity out of the foreground and gives young readers a language of care, home, and shared life. The same graphic directness links this item to The Family Book and It's Okay to Be Different. Rather than making a detailed case history, the book builds an early-childhood concept of family from repeated images and sentences.[4][5][12]

Part Of The Todd Parr Cluster

We Belong Together should be read beside The Family Book and It's Okay to Be Different. The Family Book names many forms of family, It's Okay to Be Different builds a wider vocabulary of acceptance, and We Belong Together narrows that vocabulary to adoption. Together they show how Parr's mainstream books could make inclusive family language routine for very young readers. The cluster treatment is more honest than isolating this title as a landmark; its strength comes from the repeated method across several related books.[12][8][5]

Timeline

  1. 2003Cluster anchorThe Family Book appears before We Belong Together and anchors the Todd Parr family-diversity cluster.[12]
  2. 2007PublicationWe Belong Together is published by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers.[10][11]
  3. 2007Adoption focusPublisher materials frame the book as an adoption and family-belonging title.[10]
  4. 2011Family Book review contextALA Rainbow Round Table reviews The Family Book in a related family-diversity context.[14]
  5. 2010sChallenge context nearbyALA lists The Family Book among frequently challenged titles of the 2010s.[16]
  6. 2020sInclusive teaching contextWelcoming Schools continues to use inclusive family books in classroom resources.[15]

Todd Parr Cluster

This record is best understood beside Parr's other inclusive family books.

2001

It's Okay to Be Different

Acceptance inventory with many forms of difference.

2003

The Family Book

Many-family picture book and collection cluster anchor.

2007

We Belong Together

Adoption and family-belonging companion.

Explore Connections

Browse direct links, shared themes, and nearby publication dates.

Linked records

Same creator

The Family Book

The Family Book is the Parr cluster anchor for many-family representation.

References [12][14]

Same creator

It's Okay to Be Different

Both titles use Parr's repeated statements and graphic style to normalize difference and belonging.

References [8][5]

Adoption comparison

Felicia's Favorite Story

Felicia's Favorite Story gives a more specific two-mother international-adoption narrative.

References [3][1]

Adoptive family comparison

In Our Mothers' House

Polacco's later book offers a fuller narrative of adoption and two-mother family life.

References [12]

Shared themes

Many kinds of families

Families, a Coloring Book

A Michael Willhoite coloring book that presents many family structures, including two mothers and two fathers.

Many kinds of families

It's Okay to Be Different

A Todd Parr picture book that places two-mother and two-father families inside a broader early-childhood language of acceptance.

Adoption

Fostering and Adoption (Let's Talk About)

A photo-illustrated nonfiction book for children about fostering and adoption, with local evidence of same-sex adoptive-parent language.

Many kinds of families

What Matters Most

A self-published many-family picture book about a child learning that family is defined by care rather than structure.

Nearby dates

Published c. 2007

Does God Love Michael's Two Daddies?

A child-facing religious counter-text to LGBTQ-family and same-sex-marriage children's books.

Published 2007

Fostering and Adoption (Let's Talk About)

A photo-illustrated nonfiction book for children about fostering and adoption, with local evidence of same-sex adoptive-parent language.

Published 2007

If I Had a Hundred Mummies

An Onlywomen Press early-years title in the collection's UK two-mother picture-book cluster.

Published 2007

Josh and Jaz Have Three Mums

An adoption and fostering resource story about twins with two adoptive mothers, a birth mother, and a classroom family tree.

Citation

We Belong Together. Todd Parr. Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2007. Tarpey-Schwed LGBT Families Children's Book Special Collection, Mechanics' Institute. Collection ID: KB-073.

Showing Plain text citation format.

Sources

Cover image from Todd Parr's publisher page.

  1. Local collection catalog record for We Belong Together · catalog
  2. WorldCat search for We Belong Together · library
  3. Adoption Literature review of We Belong Together · review
  4. Todd Parr author site · creator
  5. Todd Parr books page · creator
  6. Todd Parr awards page · creator
  7. Wikimedia Commons image of Todd Parr · image
  8. Todd Parr publisher page for It's Okay to Be Different · publisher
  9. Open Library record for It's Okay to Be Different · library
  10. Todd Parr publisher page for We Belong Together · publisher
  11. Open Library record for We Belong Together · library
  12. Todd Parr publisher page for The Family Book · publisher
  13. Open Library record for The Family Book · library
  14. ALA Rainbow Round Table review of The Family Book · review
  15. HRC Welcoming Schools inclusive-learning resources · education
  16. ALA challenged books, 2010-2019 · ala
  17. Associated Press on preschool book bans · news
  18. Open Library record for Heather Has Two Mommies · library