The Tales of Zebedy-Do-Dah

Overview

The Tales of Zebedy-Do-Dah is a 2009 Onlywomen Press picture book by Georgina Crawford, illustrated by Emily McCann. The Women's Bookshop record gives the ISBN, publisher, United Kingdom production, October 2009 publication date, paperback format, and 28 pages. Out For Our Children lists the book for ages three to eight and describes Zebedy-do-dah as a curious, clever dog who gets lost at a crowded country fair, meets other dogs, and is reunited with family. The local catalog gives a fuller account of the Mechanics Institute copy, describing twins Sofia and Piers, their mothers Nora and Hester, and five dog-centered stories. The public evidence is resource-list heavy, but the item is valuable as part of the UK Onlywomen and Out For Our Children cluster.^[3][2][5][1]

Dog Adventure And Family Setting

Public summaries center Zebedy-do-dah, a curious dog who gets into trouble and is reunited with family. The local catalog adds a richer held-copy description: twins Sofia and Piers, their mothers Nora and Hester, and several episodes involving mud, bath time, a dog jamboree, household mess, and ducklings. The two-mother household is therefore a domestic setting for comic animal stories rather than the whole plot.^[2][3][1]

Onlywomen And UK Cluster

The title belongs with the collection's Onlywomen and Out For Our Children records, including Spacegirl Pukes, If I Had a Hundred Mummies, Want Toast, and Not Ready Yet!. Read together, these books show a UK early-years route for two-mother representation. Their public record often lives in specialist book lists, resource packs, and small bookseller pages, which makes the cluster valuable as print-culture evidence.^[2][5][6][7]

Ordinary Representation

The book's representational mode is quiet. It does not appear to build a plot around proving that two mothers count as family. Instead, the local description places Nora and Hester as the mothers in a household where children's birthdays, a family dog, baths, mess, play, and rescue structure the action. That ordinary placement is important. It lets researchers see how same-sex-parent visibility could enter everyday comic stories rather than only problem-centered classroom or legal narratives.^[1][2]

Copy-Specific Value

The public sources establish title, author, illustrator, publisher, date, ISBN, and broad plot, but the local catalog preserves more story detail than the external records. That makes the held copy important. Physical inspection can confirm whether the book contains five separate stories, how the parents are named on the page, and how the illustrations present the household. For now, the page can responsibly identify the book and frame it as an Onlywomen cluster member.^[3][2][1]

Timeline

1. 1974Onlywomen Press foundedOnlywomen Press began as a radical feminist lesbian publishing and printing project.^[6]
2. 2009PublicationThe Women's Bookshop records the title as an October 2009 Onlywomen Press paperback.^[3]
3. 2009Out For Our Children listingOut For Our Children lists Tales of Zebedy-do-dah as a UK Onlywomen Press title for ages three to eight.^[2]
4. 2009LGBTQ-family checklistThe title appears in a checklist of children's books featuring LGBTQ family members.^[5]
5. 2010Late Onlywomen contextThe title belongs to the final years of Onlywomen's public children's-book trail.^[6][7]

Onlywomen And Out For Our Children Cluster

A UK early-years route for two-mother picture books in the collection.

Citation

The Tales of Zebedy-Do-Dah. Georgina Crawford; illustrated by Emily McCann. Onlywomen Press Ltd, 2009. Tarpey-Schwed LGBT Families Children's Book Special Collection, Mechanics' Institute. Collection ID: KB-105.

Sources

Cover image from The Women's Bookshop.

1. Local collection catalog record for The Tales of Zebedy-Do-Dah · catalog
2. Out For Our Children book list · education
3. Women's Bookshop record for Tales of Zebedy-do-dah · bookseller
4. AbeBooks record for Tales of Zebedy-do-dah · bookseller
5. Checklist of Children's Books Featuring LGBTQ Family Members · bibliography
6. Lesbian History Group note on Onlywomen Press · publisher_context
7. Open Library publisher page for Onlywomen Press · library