Floridian Rob Sanders describes himself as a teacher who writes and a writer who teaches – and both he is.
Over the past decade, he’s published a middle-grades novel and eighteen picture books for young readers. The first half-dozen books were about cowboys and aliens, Ruby Rose’s dance recital and first day at school, a toddler named Rodzilla who takes over a city, and a lesson on difference told through the eyes of a gravity-laden ball and a helium-floating ballon.
After these more traditional children’s books, a few years ago his writing took a sharp turn – toward non-fiction, specifically toward LGBTQ people and their history. This shift in Rob’s writing and how he became a gay writer of children’s picture books about LGBTQ themes has a backstory.
Rob was raised a Southern Baptist in Springfield, Missouri, and went to a Southern Baptist seminary. Through his 20s, he worked in Southern Baptist churches, creating religious programming for toddlers through sixth graders. His first paying job was with Lifeway Christian Resources, a Southern Baptist-affiliated Christian publisher in Nashville, the largest in the world at the time, where he wrote, consulted, edited, and managed writers and creators of Christian curriculum for youngsters in grades one through six.
He loved the job – and he was good at it. Then something happened. After 16 years with the company, at 45 years old, Rob received a call from the secretary of a supervisor two links up the chain, asking Rob to meet with his supervisor’s supervisor that afternoon. When he arrived at her office at the appointed time, both bosses were waiting. Without niceties, he was told that his “lifestyle” and “disrespect for the church” were causes of great concern. When he asked what they meant, the lead boss barked back: “You know!” And he was fired. On the spot. Told to pack up his things and leave the building. The only morsel of kindness offered was a three-month severance package that included health insurance.
Rob had known he is gay since his early teens. He even dated men in college. But he had kept this a secret and was unsettled about how to reconcile being gay with being Christian. Even seminary was a big bargain with God: “I’ll go to seminary and serve you for the rest of my life if you make me straight.”
Living a double life continued for twenty years after seminary. Therapists didn’t help. Prayer didn’t help. Pastoral counseling didn’t help. Medications and depression were frequent. Anxiety, too. And then, finally, a therapist affirmed Rob’s identity, giving him breathing space to consider for the first time the possibility of enjoying his life as he was created to be.
With the Lifeway job already yanked away and his collapsed world under reconstruction, in 2005 he moved to Florida and started teaching at an elementary school, using the same skills that served him well as a church educator, but this time employed to help children learn to read, write, add and subtract.
Teaching full-time and kickstarting a new life left little opportunity for outside writing projects, and these priorities didn’t change until Rob hit a milestone birthday – the big 50. Either start writing children’s books or die without having tried. He began to write. Feverishly.
In hindsight, Rob believes that being kicked to the curb by the Christian publisher was “the best worst day” of his life that gave him “a wonderful gift” – an honest life and the liberty to explore other ways of educating young people.
He has now published a dozen non-fiction LGBTQ-themed picture books (with six more slated for release over the next two years). His picture books are bright and beautifully, with glossaries, read-more bibliographies, and enriching historical-context back matter. Each book is born of his writer’s and teacher’s heart.
With LGBTQ History Month 2024 coming to a close and the holiday season upon us, families might be looking for books to expand their young people’s understanding of the world around them that also continue conversations started during History Month. Rob Sanders’ impressive LGBTQ-themed catalog is the perfect library for doing both.
Take a peek at these inspiring titles:
"We Are a Class" - An “icebreaker and friend-maker” is how Rob’s newest book is described, a guidebook for young people to learn to appreciate and care for one another. (Ages 4-7. Published in July 2024.)
"Queer and Fearless" - A book of poetry honoring seventeen LGBTQ heroes, including Bayard Rustin, Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, Pauline Park, Marsha P. Johnson, Harvey Milk, and Pete Buttigieg. (Ages 6-9. Published in April 2024.)
"A Song for the Unsung" - Written with Carole Boston Weatherford, the story of civil rights organizer and gay man Bayard Rustin, associate of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and organizer of the 1963 March on Washington. (Ages 6-10. Published in 2022.)
"The Mother of the Movement" - The story of schoolteacher Jeanne Manford and her son Morty and the founding of PFLAG in 1973. (Ages 5-12. Published in 2022.)
"Stitch by Stitch" - The story of Cleve Jones and the creation of the AIDS Memorial Quilt in 1987. (Ages 4-8. Published in 2021.)
"Two Grooms on a Cake" - The story of Jack Baker and Michael McConnell, the first same-sex couple to apply for a marriage license in the United States, in Minnesota in 1970. (Ages 6-9. Published in 2021.)
"The Fighting Infantryman" - The story of Albert D.J. Cashier, transgender man and American Civil War infantryman. (Ages 6-9. Published in 2020.)
"Bling Blaine" - Blaine is a boy who likes to sparkle, but some of his peers don’t approve. (Ages 3-8. Published in 2020.)
"Mayor Pete" - The story of Indianian Pete Buttigieg, the first openly-gay Democratic candidate to seek the presidential nomination -- and the first out-gay candidate to win a presidential primary. (Ages 4-8. Published in 2020.)
"Stonewall" - The story of the 1969 Stonewall uprising that led to marches, parades, and Pride Month. (Ages 5-8. Published in 2019.)
"Pride" - The story of Harvey Milk, Gilbert Baker, and the creation of the Rainbow Flag in 1978. (Ages 3-9. Published in 2018.)
"Peaceful Fights for Equal Rights" - A primer on peaceful and effective agitation for human rights and equality for all. (Ages 5-8. Published in 2018.)
Rodney Wilson has been an educator since 1990. He is the founder of LGBTQ+ History Month, which marked its 30th anniversary this October. A 2019 doc-short about the early years of his career as an out-gay Missouri high school teacher promoting LGBTQ-inclusive history is called Taboo Teaching and is available here: https://youtu.be/sNW4CBpj8HY
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