We’re celebrating Best of the Bay 2026 with a multitude of Editors’ Picks of things we love. Please join us at our 13th Annual Gala on October 27 to celebrate even more!
The Tarpey-Schwed LGBT Families Children’s Book Collection, housed in the Mechanics’ Institute, is arguably the city’s most untapped, urgently necessary resource. The children’s literature collection created by and named after Randall Tarpey-Schwed incudes over 200 children’s books that feature families with one or more LGBTQIA+ members.
Books span the years from 1969 to 2023 and are accompanied by Tarpey-Schwed’s meticulous notes. Cataloged as to provide historical context, the collection is designed to best serve researchers, librarians, educators, and other visitors.
The independent and feminist presses that published most of the earlier works proved to be pioneers in the industry. When Tarpey-Schwed and his husband first sought reading materials for their young daughters, books portraying LGBTQ families proved limited. He began to acquire early original editions and today, his collection reveals the journey of queer kid’s books as more and more began to be published, establishing a foothold in the children’s book industry and proving to enjoy an avid, eager readership.
One might also read an overview of how storytelling in age-appropriate queer kid’s books has evolved in the collection. Moving in accordance with social and cultural shifts, some of the early books (When Megan Went Away, Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin, Heather Has Two Mommies, and In Our Mothers’ House) were clearly focused on telling the stories of LGBTQ+ families and their lives. Later titles present LGBTQ+ family structures as natural foundations for tales of adventure, identity, celebration, mystery, science, and the marvelous imaginative world of young people. The characters’ queer identities and lifestyles are important—but they’re far from the whole story.
Never has such an assemblage of books been more important than in 2026. Frankly, the climate for queer kid’s books is icy. According to the American Library Association, 1,671 of the 4,235 titles challenged in 2025 (around 40 percent) were books about LGBTQIA+ people and people of color. Among the thousands of book bans in schools that have been documented by PEN America, LGBTQ+ titles have been disproportionately targeted.
As such, it’s a fabulous time to herald this collection. Notably, the Mechanics’ Institute is a nonprofit membership library that operates free from the censorship experienced by public systems. Books in the collection are available for in-library use by researchers and Mechanics’ Institute members. Members of the public can view certain items, and gain access to the library collection by appointment.
Explore the collection here.
