Final Project Book Two - Daddy's Roommate

Willhoite, Michael. Daddy's Roommate. Los Angeles: Alyson Publications, 1990.

Daddy's Roommate is the story of a young boy (unnamed) whose parents divorced last year and there's now somebody new at Daddy's house. Frank is Daddy's roommate. Frank and Daddy do a lot of things together, such as work around the house together, eat together, sleep together, and even fight together. Just like the young boy's dad, Frank reads to the young boy, chases away his nightmares, and tells him jokes. The three of them also do things together as a family on the weekends like going to the zoo and ballgames. The young boy's mother tells him that Frank and Daddy are "gay" but goes on to explain that "gay" just means its a different kind of love and "love is the best kind of happiness."

The story of Daddy's Roommate also offers a powerful message to go along with how families are different, but its the love and happiness within each family that makes them important. The illustrations themselves take up about 90% of the page and leave a small section for text. This aspect of the book places a lot of emphasis on the image of the family unit and how happy Daddy and Frank are together. As a sidebar: I enjoy that the young boy is a spitting image of his father. One thing that I dislike about this story as a chilren's novel is how it does address the issue of what it means to be gay, but does not say Frank is Daddy's boyfriend, just says its his roommate. I do wonder, as a reader, what the intentions of this are. Unlike Heather Has Two Mommies, this story does not address the other ways people can be members of a family. To bring in a similarity with Heather Has Two Mommies, Daddy's Roommate also has a homosexuality stereotype embedded in it with Frank wearing a theater tee shirt and the two men singing together at the piano.