Lesléa Newman

Saturday is Pattyday, originally published in 1993 and illustrated by Annette Hegel, is a book about Frankie, whose two moms get divorced.The book was republished by New Victoria on December 13, 2010.

Leslea Newman's literary awards include Creative Writing Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Massachusetts Artists Foundation, the James Baldwin award for Cultural Achievement, the Dog Writers Association of America's Best Book of Fiction Award, and a Parents' Choice Silver Medal. Nine of her books have been Lambda Literary Award finalists. In 2009 she received the Alice B. Award. Her set of children's picture books Mommy, Mama, and Me and Daddy, Papa and Me were 2010 Stonewall Honor Books as well as her 2013 October Mourning: A Song for Matthew Shepherd. In 2019, she received a National Jewish Book Award for Gittel's Journey: An Ellis Island Story.

She also authored The Boy Who Cried Fabulous and Hachiko Waits in 2004.

In the late nineties, the Wichita Falls library district faced harsh backlash from library-card holders "petition[ed] the city to move controversial materials out of the municipal library's children's section." Questionable material included Heather Has Two Mommies and Daddy's Roommate by Michael Willhoite. In 2000, a federal judge ruled that the petition was unconstitutional.

Lesléa Newman has written and edited 70 books and anthologies. She has written about such topics as being a Jew, body image and eating disorders, lesbianism, lesbian and gay parenting, and her gender role as a femme. Her best-known work is the controversial Heather Has Two Mommies. She was later the subject of another similar controversy in 1997, when her book Belinda's Bouquet was banned by School District 36 Surrey in Surrey, British Columbia, alongside Johnny Valentine's One Dad, Two Dads, Brown Dad, Blue Dads and Rosamund Elwin and Michele Paulse's Asha's Mums. That ban was eventually overturned by the Supreme Court of Canada in its 2002 decision Chamberlain v Surrey School District No 36.

However, Heather Has Two Mommies has faced a lot of controversy. The book has landed on the American Library Association's Top 100 Most Banned and Challenged Books between Between 1990 and 1999 (7), as well as between 2010 and 2019 (87).

Heather Has Two Mommies, originally published in 1989 by Alyson Books and illustrated by Diana Souza, is about a young girl who has lesbian mothers. The book was republished by Candlewick Press in 2015. In 1990, many gay and lesbian couples and their children found the first reflections of their families in this picture book.

Lesléa Newman (born November 5, 1955 in Brooklyn, New York City) is an American author, editor, and feminist. Four of her young adult novels have been finalists for the Lambda Literary Award for Children's and Young Adult Literature, making her one of the most celebrated authors in the category.

Newman was born as Leslie Newman to Jewish parents in New York City in 1955. She developed her pen name by combining her birth name with her Hebrew name, Leah. Much like Sylvia Plath, Newman first began writing as a teenager by participating in poetry contests sponsored by Seventeen magazine. Newman is a lesbian.