A super single mum strikes gold

How appropriate that this interview with the author of My two Super Dads took place on the same day the Queensland Parliament passed the Bill on same-sex marriages.

“Yesssss!” was the excited reaction coming down the line from Melbourne.

“Isn’t that fantastic,” says Bronwen Fallens, or Bronny as she prefers to be known.

Fallens is the author of the self- published series of children’s picture books depicting the family in all its wonderful forms. a single mum, gay dads, a rainbow family and a groovy gran make up the series called My Super Family.

Fallens, a super single mum herself, spoke to me just after dropping her little girl Lexie off at day care. when Lexie was born, Fallens searched for books about single-mother families to read to her young daughter.

“I wanted good, interesting stories with positive messages about a child and their mother,” says Fallens, “I couldn’t find anything suitable so I thought ‘I’m a writer, I’ll write one’.”

After writing the book My Super Single Mum, Fallens decided to continue her stories about families that “fall outside socially acceptable situations”.

“My dad was a gay dad and having gay friends with families was just a normal situation in my house when I was growing up,” she says.

The stories found in My Super Family series reflect Fallens’ idea that if children are brought up in any family feeling loved, safe and secure, it’s okay.

Fallens says the response to these stories has been gratifying. “I heard of a gay dad reading My two Super Dads to his six-year-old daughter the other night. his little daughter was so excited. She said ‘Those dads are just like you and Peter and that girl is just like me’. it was a story she could really relate to.”

Part of the books’ success is because of the wonderfully comic illustrations of Muntsa Vicente who lives in Spain. Fallens and Vicente met in an international arts online community many years ago. Fallens can’t imagine anyone else illustrating her stories.

“We’ve never actually met in person but we work so well together,” Fallens says. “As a birthday gift to myself next year, I’m planning a trip to Spain to meet her.”

Fallens has established The Little Train Publishing House that will produce two more series in the coming years.

“I’m looking at more of a geography- type series next,” she says, “one with a little girl called Boo and her floppy-eared rabbit called Mouse that travel the world together.”

It seems Boo and Mouse will be discovering a wonderful new world of possibilities.

My two Super Dads can be found in most bookshops or online ($15).

A super single mum strikes gold