See the gorgeous cover by illustrator Meridth McKean Gimbel of DOOR BY DOOR: How Sarah McBride Became America's First Openly Transgender Senator (coming in May 2023)
After years of working on the forthcoming book, DOOR BY DOOR: How Sarah McBride Became America's First Openly Transgender Senator, I'm so thrilled to share with you its beautiful cover by Meridth McKean Gimbel!
This entire book is a labor of love, for me (as I wrote about earlier), and for Meridth and the entire team at Penguin Random House/Crown Books working on it. Love for Sarah and all she does for the world, love for kids of every kind, love for the trans community, and love for children's books as "windows, mirrors and sliding glass doors," the term coined by Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop, which I write about in the book's author's note.
I started working on Sarah's story, with her blessing and cooperation, before she became a senator (when she was the first openly transgender person to speak at a national political convention), and before all the banning of LGBTQ+ children's books took on its current furor. I believed then, as I believe now, that children need to see themselves in books and they need to see others whom they may not see in their everyday lives. This helps them to grow compassion for themselves and others, and to understand and embrace that there are many different kinds of people in the world. This helps us all grow a peaceful, just, inclusive society.
As this book releases in May 2023, know that it is told and shared from a place of love. A place of embracing diversity, individuality, and community. And Meridth's illustrations have love all over them. I couldn't be more thrilled that they agreed to illustrate Sarah's story in this picture book. And I couldn't be more touched by this book cover and all that it says in its images about Sarah's and our vision of an inclusive America for all.
So, without further ado, please enjoy the first peek at the cover of DOOR BY DOOR:
And please consider showing support for this book by pre-ordering it from Penguin Random House, Bookshop.org, or wherever you buy books. Thank you!!