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Meet the Black Gay Dad Who Wrote A Children’s Book That Reflected His Reality

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When Leon Wenham wrote You, Me, and Lots of Love he says it was because he couldn’t find a children’s book that reflected his experience as a Black, gay, adoptive father to his five-year-old son.

In a sneak peak he posted on Instagram, Wenham writes, “Soooooooo I thought I’d drop an exclusive here to say a huge thank you to everyone that has followed this page and will hopefully be following me on my journey as I self publish my first children’s book. I’ve approved the draft sketches and they are great. This is one of my favourite pages not only because it has the title of my book in it, but because it’s something I say to my beautiful son quite a lot. “In our home theres, you, me and lots and lots of love”

https://www.instagram.com/p/CFrTXRehJun/?utm_source=ig_embed

According to an interview he did with the MailOnline, he said: “One of the reasons I chose to write the book is… I didn’t find any books that represented our nuclear family. I’m Black Caribbean and all the books were very much all conventional and featured Caucasian people and I think when you’ve got a child that’s adopted and doesn’t have a conventional family, if you keep seeing that in books it’s just not really helpful for them. It just highlights that they’re different, which for a four or five-year-old that can be quite difficult.”

The title of the upcoming self-published book, he explained, is “something I say to my beautiful son quite a lot: ‘In our home there’s you, me and lots and lots of love.’”

He added: “The book speaks about our adoption journey and it explains and encourages some of the big feelings and emotions many adopted children experience.

Check out @somefamiliespod to listen to the whole interview on his  adoption journey below.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CFJrgiIjJp3/

You, Me, and Lots of Love is being published through Just Bear With Us books.

 

 

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