And it occurred to me while reading Frances, as it has occurred to me while reading several other books: is it sacrilege to alter the gender of the parents of the character if that is unimportant to the main gist of the story? In this one, Frances keeps coming up with new ruses to avoid going to sleep, with her Mother and Father Badger frustrating all her attempts. But they're animals, not even in clothes, and Sis would never know they weren't a Mommy and Mama Badger, at least until she can read. There are so few good books for preschoolers with two mommy characters (esp ones that don't whack you over the head with it and Heather Has Two Mommies is too old for us yet) and there are great books with fathers; besides, if you only read books without dads, you would a). run out of stories pretty quickly and b). miss some greats of children's literature. But, in most cases, it's not the gender of the parent that makes the book great (especially because animals are relatively androgynous). What generally keeps me from just changing the pronouns and names? Honesty? Fidelity to the written word? Inattentiveness? Acceptance of the reality that most families and most of popular culture includes a mother and a father? Hey, you dads out there, do you read books about mommies and change the gender? Especially if there isn't a mommy in the family?
What would you do?
My mother's parents were divorced when she was but 3, the youngest of 4 children. To explain the absence of a father they killed him off in WW1, in fact he died in 1941, not 1914. My feeling is you should be as truthful as the children's understanding will allow. That way you have less to correct as they get older and if someone else lets any cat out of the bag. Not an easy one. Good luck.
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