Zack's Story: Growing Up with Same-Sex Parents
Keith Elliot Greenberg; photographs by Carol Halebian
Published 1996
Collection Context
A photo-illustrated account of an eleven-year-old boy living with his mother and her female partner.
Overview
Zack's Story: Growing Up with Same-Sex Parents was published by Lerner Publications Co. in 1996. Public library metadata describes the book as the account of an eleven-year-old boy whose family includes himself, his mother, and his mother's lesbian partner. The local collection record adds that the book is photo-illustrated and speaks to more mature young readers than many picture books in the collection. Its importance lies in its documentary register: it records a child narrator, a named household, and the social pressure around lesbian-parent families in the mid-1990s.[2][3][4][1]
Documentary Child Voice
The book's public descriptions identify an eleven-year-old boy speaking about life with his mother and her female partner. That framing makes the item different from many affirming picture books in the collection. It presents a child as witness to family life, with the photographs and short nonfiction format giving the record a documentary quality.[2][3][4]
Older-Reader Address
The local catalog describes the book as a picture-book-like object for more mature readers. That matters because the represented questions are not only about naming parents. The subject trail points toward children who may have to explain, defend, or understand a household that other people mark as unusual.[1][2][3]
Family Complexity
The collection record describes a household that includes a mother, her partner, divorce, remarriage, siblings, and pregnancy. Those details make the item valuable as more than a two-mother title. It records how children's books could describe blended and reproductive family arrangements alongside same-sex parenting.[1][2]
Place In The Collection
Zack's Story belongs near picture books about lesbian mothers, but it also belongs near nonfiction guides and documentary family books. It gives visitors a bridge between early family-recognition books and later materials about children articulating their own experience of gay and lesbian parents in direct language.[2][3][6]
Timeline
- 1996PublicationLerner Publications Co. published Zack's Story in Minneapolis.[2][3]
- 1996Library classificationLibrary records place the book with subject headings for children of gay parents, lesbian mothers, mothers and sons, and families.[2][3]
- 2008Open Library recordOpen Library's edition record was created in 2008 and later revised, preserving ISBN, classification, and summary metadata.[2]
- Current access trailAccessible-book listingBookshare preserves a short reader-facing description that foregrounds Zack, his mother, Margie, and the social language around lesbian mothers.[4]
Edition And Object History
Library records identify a 1996 Lerner edition with photographs by Carol Halebian.
1996
Lerner Publications Co. edition
Public library records give a 32-page illustrated book with ISBN 9780822525813.
Explore Connections
Browse direct links, shared themes, and nearby publication dates.
Linked records
Heather Has Two Mommies
Both records center children in lesbian-parent households, but Zack's Story shifts from fictional picture-book recognition to a photographed nonfiction account.
Asha’s Mums
The records share the problem of children explaining a two-mother family to a wider social world, though one uses fiction and the other uses documentary testimony.
Families: A Celebration of Diversity, Commitment, and Love
Both items point toward family photography as a way to make same-sex-parent households visible to children and adults.
Shared themes
Gloria Goes to Gay Pride
An Alyson Wonderland picture book that places a child-facing story in the public setting of Gay Pride.
How Would You Feel if Your Dad Was Gay?
An Alyson Wonderland story about children deciding how to speak about gay and lesbian parents at school.
How Would You Feel if Your Dad Was Gay?
An Alyson Wonderland story about children deciding how to speak about gay and lesbian parents at school.
Bedtime for Baby Teddy
An Australian picture book for very young children of lesbian parents.
Nearby dates
Amy asks a question--Grandma, what's a lesbian?
A Mother Courage Press book that explains lesbian identity through a child's visit with her grandmothers.
Daddy’s Wedding
A pre-marriage-equality picture book about a boy attending his father and Frank’s commitment ceremony.
Girl Goddess #9
A Francesca Lia Block young adult record used to map queer adolescence, family, gender, and access history.
Is Your Family Like Mine?
An early picture book in which a child with two mothers asks classmates what makes a family.
Citation
Zack's Story: Growing Up with Same-Sex Parents. Keith Elliot Greenberg; photographs by Carol Halebian. Lerner Publications Co., 1996. Tarpey-Schwed LGBT Families Children's Book Special Collection, Mechanics' Institute. Collection ID: KB-126.
Showing Plain text citation format.
Sources
Cover image from Open Library.
- Local collection catalog record for Zack's Story · catalog
- Open Library edition record for Zack's Story · bibliographic
- Free Library of Philadelphia catalog record for Zack's Story · library_catalog
- Open Library author page for Keith Elliot Greenberg · author_profile
- Children's Books Portraying LGBT Parents checklist · bibliography