Are You a Friend of Dorothy?
The True Story of an Imaginary Woman and the Real People She Helped
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- Pre-Order
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- Expected Apr 29, 2025
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- $10.99
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- Pre-Order
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
From Newbery Honor and Stonewall Book Award–winning author Kyle Lukoff and celebrated picture book illustrator Levi Hastings comes an “approachable, engaging” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) picture book about how people found community in a time when they had to keep their true selves secret.
“Are you a friend of Dorothy?”
In a time when the LGBTQ+ community was forced to hide in the shadows, a woman named Dorothy helped her people find each other in the dark and celebrate themselves in the light.
But who was Dorothy? Was she from the neighborhood, someone’s wife, mother, or sister? Was she that clever writer, who threw parties where there were no rules about who you could and couldn’t dance with? Or was she a girl from Kansas, who dreamed of leaving her black-and-white, small-town life and finding a vibrant, colorful world that loved her?
Dorothy might have been all these things—because Dorothy, as known by the post-WWII queer community, wasn’t real. Still, she helped a community find connection and care amidst adversity.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Straightforwardly detailing how LGBTQ+ people have long found each other via verbal and visual cues, this approachable, engaging work is a primer on both queer history and how "learning about the ways we survived in the past could help people in the future." Succinct text from Lukoff (There's No Such Thing as Vegetables) delves into the sociopolitical history of queer signal "friend of Dorothy." During a time when U.S. laws "made it illegal to be gay," undercover spies from the U.S. military heard about the phrase—and, believing Dorothy to be a real person, began searching for her ("How did she know all these gay men? Why did she know them? And how could they get her to reveal those secrets?"). Expressive, bright-hued portraiture from Hastings (Big Wig) visualizes decades of history alongside possible origins of the title phrase, including actor Judy Garland's Wizard of Oz character and writer Dorothy Parker ("known for being clever and grouchy"). Together, the creators assuredly demonstrate that "people always know how to find each other. And when it isn't safe to be out as yourself, you can always create ways to learn who your friends might be." Characters are portrayed with various abilities, body types, and skin tones. A concluding note reflects on terms used. Ages 4–8. Author's
