Rainbow Tales

Rainbow Stories is a guide for parents that includes a printable (and digital) children's book to start important conversations with children — but first in our own minds.

There are 4 stories of children with different sexual orientations and gender identities written for children in a simple and spontaneous way, the way we should speak about "diversity".

In fact, maybe it's time to stop calling it "diversity" and if we really want to label it, just call it normalcy or reality: these stories are for parents who want to show their children the real world.

Rainbow Stories characters

Rainbow Tales are the stories of three fictional characters, Alex (a bisexual boy's little brother), Mathieu (a boy with two moms), Nina (a transgender girl) and a real character, Ethan Caspani, a transgender guy who accepted to participate in the project to offer that extra connection with reality that I love (and consider necessary) in children's stories.

The project

Rainbow Stories was born from a digital book created by five activists from various countries in Europe and Latin America during a Summer Hackathon organized by the Green European Foundation (GEF) in collaboration with the Federation of European Young Greens (FYEG) and with the financial support of the European Parliament.

The creators are Luca Boccoli, Alexander Laamanen, Javier Larios, Hannah Lazzaretti and Anastasija Stošić.

Together they wrote and illustrated the original English version "Rainbow Tales" and my sister Cristiana Cerri Gambarelli, FYEG Project Manager, sent me the final result to read to Oliver and Emily.

A year later, when I started creating guides for parents that include a children's book (the first was about sex education), I remembered Rainbow Tales, which was still in some remote corner of my computer.

With the authors' permission, I took the children's book, rewrote some parts, added the story of Ethan Caspani (who kindly agreed to participate to offer a real character with real photos), wrote the guide for parents and translated everything into Italian and Spanish.

That's how Rainbow Tales was born.

All proceeds go to support the LGBTQ + community

These are important conversations, and I think that important conversations require important actions.

That's why all the parts involved in this project agreed that ALL proceeds from Rainbow Tales will go to ILGA Europe, an organisation that works towards equality and human rights of the LGBTQ+ community.

This is not a decision I took lightly, because there's a lot of work involved for me, BUT it's a decision that feels right. My kind of decisions.  

An excerpt from the introduction to the guide for parents

«Even in the 21st century, homosexual and transgender people are often frowned upon, insulted and even abused in many countries around the world. We don't need to go far: in Italy homosexual couples who expose themselves on social media receive insults and death threats (!); homosexual people continue to be brutally beaten up by strangers; parish priests organise rosaries to pray for the conversion of homosexuals.

This is unacceptable.

This is not educating with respect, towards peace nor long term».

What you find inside

Rainbow Tales is a guide for parents that includes a printable children's book (that you can also read digitally). When you buy it you will find:

• The guide for parents: reflections on privilege, gender diversity, inclusive language, personal experiences, examples of how to change some conversations and mentalities…
  The children's book to print (in PDF format) for the little ones
• The digital version of the book to read online
  A short tutorial on how to bind the book in which I also explain why I would like *you* to do it with your own hands
  A glossary written by the authors of the book with my own additions of how I explain these terms to my children
  A list of resources (constantly updated) to continue the conversation at home
  The full letter Ethan Caspani wrote to his mom when he came out (thanks Ethan, you opened my eyes in so many ways!)
  The original version of the children's book Rainbow Tales that the authors created it during the Hackathon
  

I can't wait for Rainbow Tales to get into your homes and sow seeds in your minds.