For moms and dads.

Families Like Mine: Children of Gay Parents Tell It Like It Is * Abigail Garner * HarperCollins * $24.95

Moving far beyond the usual numbingly PC portraits designed to show how normal the children of gay parents are, Abigail Garner presents a smart and impassioned argument that "normal" is beside the point. "LGBT families should be allowed to be just as wacky, troubled, or complex as any other American family," she writes in Families Like Mine. "It is the truth of our humanity--not the myth of "perfect" conformity--that will one day help LGBT families celebrate full equality."

Although her book is incredibly affirming, Garner doesn't sugarcoat her material. Drawing on her personal history (her dad is gay) and eight years of activism, she delves into some of the most challenging issues for lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgendered parents and their kids: homophobia; divorce; AIDS; and the intricacies of emerging adolescent sexualities in gay households like coming out to closeted parents or overcoming "straight shame." This is the new essential reading for LGBT families.--Regina Marler

Gay Men Choosing Parenthood * Gerald P. Mallon * Columbia University Press * $21.95

Part academic study, part celebration of queer pioneers, Gerald P. Mallon's Gay Men Choosing Parenthood profiles 20 gay men who tore through the red tape, suspicion, and homophobia that stood in their way to adoption or surrogacy in the '80s and early '90s. Gay dads of any kind, or men hoping to become dads, will find inspiration among these stories of real parenting, gender politics, community responses, and the personal transformation that life with a child brings.--R.M.