199: Unconventional Fairytales for Unconventional Families

As you know, this show and the website are on a mission to explore family in all its many, many shapes and forms, as well as the issues shaping family life and society in 2018 and beyond. So when I heard about the project my guest for this episode has undertaken, I knew she was a kindred spirit in celebrating family diversity. Elisa Binda and her partner Mattia Perrego have created Unconventional Fairytales for Unconventional Families, a book of children’s stories that organically weave diverse characters and family configurations into the adventures depicted on the beautifully illustrated pages.

If a children’s book is going to handle an issue pertaining to family structure, it’s often in a bit of self-help form, geared at explaining to kids why they have two homes, or two dads, or something along those lines. Importantly, Unconventional Fairytales take a different approach altogether, simply telling great, imaginative stories that happen to have broader sets of characters, including a trans child — born a warlock but who identifies as a witch, a princess with divorced parents, a pair of pirate moms and more. Join to hear more about this awesome project and the real-life stories that inspired the book.

Notes

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