This Day In June
For individuals in the U.S. & U.S. territories
This day in June…
Parade starts soon…
In a wildly whimsical, validating, and exuberant reflection of the LGBT community, This Day In June welcomes readers to experience a pride celebration and share in a day when we are all united.
Also included is a Reading Guide chock-full of facts about LGBT history and culture, as well as a Note to Parents and Caregivers with information on how to talk to children about sexual orientation and gender identity in age-appropriate ways.
This Day In June is an excellent tool for teaching respect, acceptance, and understanding of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people.
- Winner, 2015 Stonewall Book Award – Mike Morgan and Larry Romans Children's & Young Adult Literature Award
- Top Ten Title, ALA Rainbow List
When you reach the last of this book, you will immediately turn to the beginning pages to read it all over again.
It's a children's book about queer history and diversity. I love that it teaches tolerance and acceptance and makes pride something everyone can celebrate. The book also includes a reading guide for parents.
—Erica Anderson, The Advocate "40 Under 40" Most Important Books of the Last Decade
If you purchase just one new picture book this year, it should be This Day in June.
—Magpie Librarian (Blog of American Library Association Rainbow List director)
The bouncy rhymes convey feelings and snapshots of parade scenes rather than a narrative storyline, but that doesn't lessen the book's impact. We're introduced to dykes on bikes, people in leather, drag queens and others of varying gender expressions, politicians, marching bands, and parents with their children. The diverse characters in Kristyna Litten's colorful illustrations jump and dance and swirl.
The text of Gayle E. Pitman's flows like poetry from page to page and is partnered with the joyous illustrations by Kristyna Litten.
—EDGE on the Net
Curious children who are learning about gender, identity, and self-expression will love learning about the diverse and unwavering LGBT community in a colorful book that celebrates pride. Parents who are eager to talk to their kids about the ways in which people are different, or about LGBT Pride month in general will find that This Day In June provides excellent context and serves as a conversation starter.
—One Equal World
This beautifully illustrated book is a great addition to a school or personal library to add diversity in a responsible manner without contributing to stereotypes about LGBT people.
—School Library Journal
A beautifully illustrated, and beautifully explained, look at Pride through the eyes of a child…The story does an excellent job of turning images that some frame as negative — men dancing together, interracial couples, nonconforming gender presentations — into aspects that should be celebrated. The book ends with the words, "This day in June, we're all united!" an inspiring message that should be just as uplifting for adults as it is affirming for youth.
—Philadelphia Gay News
This Day In June adds a bright spot for diversity on any bookshelf, and will help bring the true colors and beautiful experience of LGBT pride to life for school age children and their families
—Ellen Kahn, Director of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) Family Project
Pitman, in her first book for children, salutes the LGBT parades that take place across the U.S. in June. Her couplets keep things marching steadily forward, but it's Litten's artwork that creates a sense of joyous excitement and showcases the diversity on display.
This Day in June is the pride parade picture book queer parents have been waiting for since, oh, 1970. We've needed something that captured the joy and exuberance of the event, and something that helped kids picture the glorious range of gender expression and queer fabulousness that is so righteously on display at Pride (and by contrast so absent in most of our kids' everyday lives). We've wanted a sweet, playful opportunity to talk in advance about what they'll see, what it'll be like. We've wanted to help them get as excited as we do, in anticipation, and have a way to share it with their friends.
Intended for children ages four through eight — but absolutely a book every PFLAGer will want on their shelf — the book serves as an excellent tool for teaching respect, understanding, and affirmation of LGBTQ people.
—PFLAG Voice blog