Interview with Sarah Prager, Author of “Kind Like Marsha: Learning from LGBTQ+ Leaders”
What can you tell us about Kind Like Marsha: Learning from LGBTQ+ Leaders, your children’s book coming out August 2?
I was inspired to write Kind Like Marsha because there wasn’t a book for me to read to my own kids, who are now five and three, to teach them about the LGBTQ+ historical figures I care so much about. I love teaching about these heroes, inventors, and activists I consider my ancestors and I have published a young adult book (Queer, There, and Everywhere) and a middle grade book (Rainbow Revolutionaries) sharing their stories but I couldn’t share those in my own home yet, so a picture book was born. It has been incredibly meaningful and rewarding to read the book to my five-year-old who asks for it again and again and now loves learning more and more about Marsha P. Johnson, Harvey Milk, Alan L. Hart, Sylvia Rivera, Sappho, and others.
Kind Like Marsha shares a positive attribute from each of these people encouraging kids ages four to eight to be artistic like Frida Kahlo, daring like Alberto Santos-Dumont, loving like Ai of Han, and resilient like Josephine Baker, and most of all to be like all of these people by being true to themselves. There is a two-sentence biography and full-page brightly colored illustration of each of the 14 LGBTQ+ historical figures as well.
If you had to pick one (or a few!) favorite queer historical figure(s), who would they be and why?
Well, we named our first daughter Eleanor after Eleanor Roosevelt so I would have to say she is a particular inspiration. I love her quiet yet strong form of leadership for women’s rights. I also have two tattoos inspired by Sappho so she is another favorite!
Have you always been interested in history? What draws you to learning about, writing, and teaching it?
As soon as I came out as a lesbian at the age of fourteen I was drawn to my community’s history and to sharing it. I was president of my high school’s GSA and would share LGBTQ+ history facts I found online on a bulletin board and at school assemblies. I faced some censorship for it, even sharing it as an alum in more recent times, though I was lucky compared to most.
Our history helps me feel connected to our greater family and as a young person it gave me role models when there weren’t any in the media yet. Knowing that nonbinary people existed hundreds and thousands of years ago is so meaningful and empowering for nonbinary youth, for example, and that’s why I do what I do.
In the process of writing Queer, There, and Everywhere and Rainbow Revolutionaries, what were some of the most interesting, meaningful, or intriguing things you learned about queer history?
Queer history is all of human history and it goes back as far as you can imagine. Before colonization, a vast diversity of genders and sexualities were much more accepted around the world. The figures in Kind Like Marsha go back to BCE.
Do you have any other projects in the works?
Yes, two! My next middle grade book, A Child’s Introduction to Pride, will come out in May 2023. I’m also very excited about my 2023 page-a-day calendar called Pride, on sale now from Workman Publishing. It’s full of fun trivia, moments in history, quizzes, quotations, and more.
