Uncle Bobby's Wedding

Chloe has a very special relationship with her Uncle Bobby. He takes her rowing, teaches her the names of the stars and loves flying kites. So when Bobby announces his engagement to Jamie at a family picnic, Chloe feels left out. Everyone else is celebrating, but Bobby is her special uncle, and Chloe doesn’t want their relationship to change.

‘Why is Uncle Bobby getting married?’ she asks her mum. ‘When grown-up people love each other that much, sometimes they get married’, Mum replies, and suggests that Chloe and Bobby have a chat. After a day having fun with Bobby and Jamie, Chloe discovers that time spent with both of them is even better than time alone with Bobby. ‘I wish both of you were my uncles,’ she says, and of course, her wish comes true. Chloe is a flower girl at ‘the best wedding ever,’ as Jamie joins the family and the celebrations begin.

Packed with action and emotion, Lucia Soto’s brightly-coloured artwork brings a contemporary buzz to an LGBTQ+ classic first published in the USA in 2008 with illustrations by the author, and subsequently reworked for this completely new edition. Instead of the anthropomorphised guineapigs of the original, Soto gives us an exuberant and expressive cast of visibly diverse characters who draw us to the heart of their story about love and family, and how we celebrate.

Chloe’s uncertainty about her uncle’s wedding will strike a chord with children worried by change, and it’s her fear that she will lose a favourite uncle to another relationship that drives this story, not the nature of that relationship. As Sarah Brannen says on mombian.com, “the whole point of the book is that the wedding of Bobby and his boyfriend Jamie is just part of the fabric of a family. Except for a couple of pronouns, the story would be identical if Bobby was marrying a woman.”

This beautiful, heartwarming and important celebration of love and family reassures children that change can bring joy and new possibilities, and leaves all of us with a warm glow.