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A Beach Party with Alexis
Sarita Johnson-Calvo
Published 1993
Book
An Alyson Publications story-coloring book connected to early 1990s LGBTQ children's publishing.
Overview
A Beach Party with Alexis is a 1993 story-coloring book by Sarita Johnson-Calvo, recorded by Open Library as an Alyson Publications paperback. The collection record describes a beach-party story set at Alameda Beach and notes details that make the object especially rich: a lesbian mother's partner named as her lover, African American family and community representation, and visible AIDS-support signs. Those local details make the held copy important, while public sources establish the title's bibliographic existence and Alyson publishing context. The item belongs with early 1990s LGBTQ children's books, activity books, and newer scholarship on queer-of-color worldmaking in children's literature.[1][2][3][4][5][6]
Story-Coloring Book Form
The collection record calls the item a coloring book with a story. Open Library records it as a 32-page paperback, while contemporary feminist-bookstore material describes line drawings and a saddle-stitched format. That format matters because readers encounter the beach-party narrative through both text and pages intended for coloring. The book therefore belongs beside activity-book records rather than only beside trade picture books.[1][2][4]
Alyson Publications Network
The title sits inside the Alyson children's-book environment of the early 1990s. Open Library gives Alyson Publications as publisher, while nearby collection records connect Alyson Wonderland and Alyson Books to Pride, family-diversity, and gay-parent picture books. The exact imprint language matters, but the network is clear: this item belongs to the same small-press publishing moment that made LGBTQ family books available to children and caregivers.[2][7][8][6]
A Rich Collection Description
The collection record preserves unusually specific interior details: Alameda Beach, a lesbian mother's partner described as her lover, African American family and community representation, and AIDS-support signs near a bus stop. These details are important because they connect the book to local geography, HIV/AIDS-era language, and representation beyond a single family structure. They also make the held object valuable for future object photography and page-level description.[1]
Queer-Of-Color Research Lead
Recent scholarship gives the item another path for interpretation. Isabel Millan's Coloring into Existence is concerned with queer-of-color worldmaking in children's literature, and the title appears in that research orbit. This does not make the book a simple first or singular example. It does make the collection item useful for researchers asking how race, family, sexuality, local setting, and activity-book form met in early LGBTQ children's publishing.[5][2][4]
Timeline
- 1991Alyson Family-Diversity ContextFamilies, a Coloring Book and Gloria Goes to Gay Pride appear in the same early 1990s Alyson children's-book environment.[7][8]
- 1993PublicationOpen Library dates A Beach Party with Alexis to August 1993 through Alyson Publications.[2]
- 1993Community-Bookstore PromotionFeminist Bookstore News material promoted the title among Alyson children's books.[4]
- 2005Alyson Publishing ContextPublishers Weekly later described Alyson's place in gay and lesbian publishing history.[6]
- 2023Queer-Of-Color ScholarshipColoring into Existence expanded scholarly context around queer-of-color children's literature.[5]
Alyson Activity-Book Context
The item's strongest comparisons are early 1990s Alyson and Alyson-adjacent children's records.
1991
Gloria Goes to Gay Pride
Alyson Wonderland Pride picture-book context.
1991
Families, a Coloring Book
Michael Willhoite's family-diversity coloring-book peer.
1993
A Beach Party with Alexis
The collection item.
Explore Connections
Browse direct links, shared themes, and nearby publication dates.
Linked records
Families, a Coloring Book
Both items are early 1990s coloring or activity books connected to Alyson and to child-facing family representation.
Gloria Goes to Gay Pride
Both titles belong to the early 1990s Alyson children's-book environment, one through Pride representation and the other through a story-coloring book.
Daddy's Roommate
Daddy's Roommate is a stronger known Alyson gay-parent anchor, while A Beach Party with Alexis shows the same period's activity-book and community-publishing range.
My Dad Has HIV
The collection record's AIDS-support-sign detail links the item to HIV/AIDS-era children's-book context, though the comparison title centers HIV more directly.
Shared themes
Chag Sameach! = Happy Holidays
A Jewish holiday book illustrated with photographs of diverse families and community observances.
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.
Asha’s Mums
A Canadian picture book in which a school permission form brings a two-mother family into public view.
Heather Has Two Mommies
The Alyson Wonderland edition that carried Heather from community publication into a wider gay and lesbian publishing network.
Nearby dates
Alfie's Home
A children's book from conversion-therapy advocacy, preserved here as harmful historical context.
Coping When a Parent Is Gay
A juvenile nonfiction book about young people responding to a parent's gay identity.
Living in Secret
A young adult novel about custody, secrecy, and a teenager's hidden life with her mother and her mother's partner in San Francisco.
Saturday is Pattyday
A New Victoria picture book about a child maintaining a relationship with one mother after his two mothers separate.
Citation
A Beach Party with Alexis. Sarita Johnson-Calvo. Alyson Publications, 1993. Tarpey-Schwed LGBT Families Children's Book Special Collection, Mechanics' Institute. Collection ID: KB-106.
Showing Plain text citation format.
Sources
- Tarpey-Schwed catalog seed record · catalog
- Open Library ISBN record for A Beach Party with Alexis · library metadata
- Korean Queer Archive item page for A Beach Party with Alexis · archive catalog
- Feminist Bookstore News PDF with Alyson children's-book promotion · periodical
- NYU Press page for Coloring into Existence · scholarship
- Publishers Weekly context on Alyson and gay and lesbian publishing · trade context
- Open Library ISBN record for Gloria Goes to Gay Pride · library metadata
- Open Library ISBN record for Families · library metadata