What is this book about?

A must-have primer for young children and a great gift to commemorate Pride events. Rainbow: A First Book of Pride is a sweet ode to Rainbow families and an affirming display of a parent’s love for their child and a child’s love for their parents.

Illustrated with colorful depictions of joyful families, this book celebrates LGBTQ+ Pride and reveals the meaning behind each rainbow stripe: life, healing, sunlight, nature, harmony, and spirit.

Who is depicted in this book?

• LGBTQ+ led families 
• Children or adults who are/may be LGBTQ+ 
• Children or adults who transcend gender stereotypes

What early childhood themes and concepts does this book explore?

• Color through an LGBTQ+ lens
• Colors and their connections to emotions and actions
• Different types of families
• A rainbow is something that occurs in the sky and is also depicted in books, in art, and on the Rainbow flag. (Note that this book depicts the traditional flag colors; click here to find out how the flag has evolved over time.)
• Abstract vocabulary and concepts such as harmony and spirit

How does this book support anti-bias education?

Along with other texts, this book may be used to represent and affirm diverse families to all children and to highlight what all families have in common.

Depending on how the book is shared or used—and the developmental level of the children—the images and text may be used to support the following core goals from the book, Anti-Bias Education for Young Children and Ourselves:

Identity—Teachers will nurture each child’s construction of knowledgeable and confident personal and social identities so that children will demonstrate self-awareness, confidence, family pride, and positive social identities.

Diversity—Teachers will promote each child’s comfortable, empathetic interactions with people from diverse backgrounds so that children will express comfort and joy with human diversity, use accurate language for human differences, and form deep, caring connections across all dimensions of human diversity.

How can this book be used to meet early childhood learning standards?

For all ages

Use Rainbow: A First Book of Pride to meet early childhood literacy standards >

For children from birth to age three

Teaching suggestion: Point out colors and familiar objects, as well as the featured characters and their actions. Model different words to describe parents and identify different types of families.

What Illinois Early Learning Guideline does this meet for children from birth to age three?

Developmental DomainCognitive Development

Standard: Concept DevelopmentChildren demonstrate the ability to connect pieces of information in understanding objects, ideas and relationships.

Indicators for children:

• Begins to identify and name objects and people (16–24 months)
• Begins to identify characteristics of the object, such as “red ball” (16–24 months)
• Identifies characteristics of objects and people when named, such as colors (21–36 months)

For preschoolers (ages three to five)

Teaching suggestion: Encourage the children to notice and discuss the similarities and differences between family structures and among family members.

What Illinois Early Learning and Development Standards does this meet for preschoolers?

Social Studies Standard18BDevelop an awareness of self within the context of family.

• Benchmark 18.B.ECa:

  Understand that each of us belongs to a family and recognize that families vary.

Teaching suggestion: Encourage the children to notice and discuss human diversity, including skin color. Probe their assumptions about gender expression and expand their ideas of how gender “looks.”

What Illinois Early Learning and Development Standards does this meet for preschoolers?

Social Studies Standard18AExplore people, their similarities and their differences.

• Benchmark 18.A.ECa:

  Recognize similarities and differences in people.

Teaching suggestion: Compare this book with another story featuring families and/or the colors of the Rainbow flag, such as Pride Colors by Robin Stevenson or We Are the Rainbow! The Colors of Pride by Claire Winslow. Discuss what the colors represent to the children and compare their answers about the meaning of each stripe in the Rainbow flag.

What Illinois Early Learning and Development Standards does this meet for preschoolers?

Language Arts Standard2DEstablish personal connections with books.

• Benchmark 2.D.ECb:

  With teacher assistance, compare and contrast two stories relating to the same topic.

Teaching suggestion: As you share the book with the children, stop and ask what they see in each illustration that conveys the concept symbolized by each Rainbow flag color. Ask questions such as: "What is healing in this picture? What shows harmony here?"

What Illinois Early Learning and Development Standards does this meet for preschoolers?

Language Arts Standard1EUse increasingly complex phrases, sentences and vocabulary.

• Benchmark 1.E.ECb:

  Exhibit curiosity and interest in learning new words heard in conversations and books.

• Benchmark 1.E.ECc:

  With teacher assistance, use new words acquired through conversations and book‐sharing experiences.

See inside this book.

What other resources are available?

Visit the author’s website.

Find a read-aloud of this book, read by the author, on YouTube.

Learn more about Pride flags and how to use them as teaching tools here.