The story is simple and easy to read. The illustrations are very different from what I usually see in books. The pattern is what you see on the cover- the look is that off color pencil hatching. I prefer bright, dark colors over this, but it makes for a decent change. I'm pretty neutral about the book, because I wasn't particularly drawn towards the story or characters.

What an INCREDIBLE lesson to teach to children. This book is clearly meant for children who are siblings of, children of, or friends of LGBTQ individuals. The book doesn't focus much on the experience of Noah, a LGBTQ boy, instead it focuses on Joy, Noah's sister. Joy, with the help of her parents, comes to term with the fact that sometimes the world is not friendly to those who are different, and that it is the job of ally's to come to their defense, love and support them. Thank you to Netgalley for the copy to review.

This is such an important book about how to be an ally, especially for the younger audience. Small things can help to make change. Supporting others, showing kindness & acceptance can go a long way. I really enjoyed that more info was included at the end of the book, including a glossary & discussion questions to talk about before and after reading this book.

Thanks to Jessica Kingsley Publishers and NetGalley for the advanced readers copy!

Pride and Joy is a book about allyship. Joy loves her older brother and sees him being bullied for being gay. She asks her Mom how she can help and she is taught about ways to be an ally. She hold a bake sale to raise money for the teen center he brother goes too and also teaches her friends how to be an ally. The book does a great job teaching a challenging topic to younger kids!

3.5 stars
This is a really good book to help teach children what an ally is and ways to be an ally. I understand this book is about how to be an ally, but I felt there was way too much focus on the allies and not much on those they are being an ally for. I also feel that this could have been written better. It felt a bit stiff and I’m not sure it was written in a way that children will understand and pay attention to. However, this book still conveys an important lesson for both children and adults. The end of the book also shares additional information for parents and guardians.

The illustrations were nice, they displayed the hateful attitude of others in grey and dark scenes and the pride and joy of the others in colours.

"Pride and Joy" is a good introductory story to LGBTQA+ allyship for young children. It also has discussion questions to foster discussion between children and adults and some basic information at the end about the community. I wish this type of resource had existed when I was a kid and I'm glad it does now.

I don't like that this book focused so hard on its ally characters, leaving its queer characters at the sidelines. That sort of defeats the purpose. I also don't like that the end of the book teaches that the A in LGBTQA can stand for ally. That is an old idea that I feel needs to die out. Real allies are happy to ally with the community without receiving credit in the acronym, which is unfair to asexuals, aromantics and agender people.

This is a childrens book about becoming an ally to people who belong to the lgbtqia+ community. It's about a young girl whose big brother is getting bullied for being gay. The book has beautiful illustrations. I would recommend this to every child who has a family member or friend in the lgbtqia+ community .

This children's book is about how to become an ally to the lgbtqia+ community. The illustrations are very beautiful and powerful.
This book will benefit children with lgbtqia siblings but also those who don't.
I liked inclusion of the information for adults and the discussion questions.

This is a picture book about a girl learning to be an LGBTQ+ ally after seeing her brother and his boyfriend being harassed by other boys.

It is a simple and sweet story of love and acceptance, and how standing up to bullies can inspire others to be an ally too.

I loved the style and the colours, although I found the story to be quite simplistic. 3 stars for the story, 4 for the style!

At the end there are a few resources, tips and questions that a parent/guardian can look at with the child(ren) they are reading the book with, which is always nice to see.

Overall, Pride and Joy has incredible messaging for children on how to be an activist and ally, specifically to the LGBTQ+ community. The story is written very well; very easy to understand, making it ideal for young readers/listeners. The illustrations were lovely - I loved that the bully was portrayed in only black and white (as opposed to the rest of the colourful story). I wish it dug just a little deeper, but the additional resources and education at the end help with that. Highly recommend!

Thank you to Jessica Kingsley Publishers and NetGalley for this ARC!

What an absolute joy of a book to read. Perfectly times for Pride Month, this beautiful book tells the story of a young girl's journey of activism after the bullying of her brother. Perfect for any young one to learn about being an individual and standing up to inequality. Would be a great teaching resource also!

Pride and Joy is an adorable introductory LGBTQ book. Joy loves her big brother Noah, but doesn’t like it when he’s teased for being gay. But Joy wants to help and becomes an ally – someone who supports others.
I think books like this are incredibly important to help younger children learn about the world around them. There should definitely be more of them, especially in classrooms as we certainly need to teach our children about tolerance.

The illustrations were okay and did help to tell the story, but I think I would have preferred a different art style, but that’s personal preference. It’s also possible that the illustrations look stronger in a book format as on my kindle they lacked any real punch and definition.

Although I liked the story, I think it could have dug a little bit deeper than it did, but overall it has a great message. I think it could have given us more, especially as we barely saw Noah.

Stories about pride are so important to see. It also highlights the importance of allyship from a young age as well as within a family. It highlighted that anyone can be an ally and stand up to hate. That having people stand up for what's right will trump the hate people use to tear others down. This is an important story!

Thanks to Netgalley and the editor for providing an arc of this book.

I have mixed feelings about this read. Let's start with the positive: the illustrations are beautiful and whimsy, with a clever use of a monochromatic palette on the pages meant to depict the effects of homophobia. The relationship between the little girl and her queer older brother as presented in the first few spreads is heartwarming.
Moreover, additional material is provided at the end of the book to better help explain how to discuss LGBTQ+ identites and issues with kids.
Unfortunately the same additional material does a better job at conveying the book's message than the story itself does. In the story, the focus is concentrated on cis het allies, while the actual queer characters are relegated to the sidelines and only intervene to validate the allies' actions, which made me cringe. To be clear, any try to explain what allyship is and how to be an ally should always, Always, keep the focus on the discriminated minority and their experience and feelings. It is the allies' role to validate them and fade into the sidelines, not the other way around. As such, I feel that this book has failed to convey the message it meant to.

This was such a cute book. I love that pride books are becoming more available this was a great book to read with my kiddos

In this story we meet Joy. Joy loves her big brother Noah. She mentions Noah and his boyfriend Miguel. The book does not hyper-focus on the fact that Noah has a boyfriend. It’s presented like any other relationship, as it should be.

In the book Joy sees Noah getting bullied because he has a boyfriend. She becomes discouraged and ask her mom what she can do. Her mom tells her that she could be an ally. Joy wants to know what an ally is.

The book does a great job explaining what an ally is and why they are needed. In the book Joy wants to know what she can do as her brother’s ally. Mom suggest they do a big sale and donate all of the proceeds to the teen center that Miguel and Noah are part of. The book shows the community coming together to support all of the kids as part of the center.

At the end, there’s a section called a note to grown-up allies. It helps break some things down for us as adults to better prepare us to help kids. It has explanations of definitions, as well as tips on things like how to be inclusive, how to be humble, and how to help people seek help.

Following that is discussion questions that you can use while going through the book with a child. It has for before reading to introduce the base concept, it has questions to ask during reading to help reinforce the plot of the book, and then questions, for after reading to make sure everyone understood the book.

If you’ve been looking for a way to introduce Ally-ship to your child, this book has everything neatly packaged. It’s not the only text to use, but they actually recommend several other text to check out to enhance education of ally ship.

This was fun read with my step kids. Six enjoyed the pictures, and learning about being an ally. Eighteen enjoyed finding another kids book with LGBTQ+ themes.

As a parent, I enjoyed forward and talking points for adults to help center conversations for little readers.

I'll note there were some formatting issues on page 39 of my Kindle copy that cause a stop and some time to align the text. It's difficult to isolate this from my review as it broke up the reading with the kids.

We look forward to adding this to our home library in the future.

Overall Impression: This book was a JOY to read. I loved the illustrations, they were beautiful and bright. The message in the book is so important and delivered in a way that makes it easy for children to understand. I think the discussion questions at the end of the book and additional information are a nice touch. These are helpful for the adults who are reading the book to children.

What I liked: I liked the way Joy's feelings are described when she becomes nervous and upset. The description is spot on and easy for children to understand. It's a really gentle story with a positive message.

What I would change: I wouldn't change anything about this book. It is really well done. I can tell the authors put a lot of effort into the story design and resources.

Would I buy it? I would definitely buy this book! I have two young children, ages 8 and 5. I think they would love this.

Would I tell a friend to buy it? I plan on telling my friends to add this to their libraries. It's important to have inclusive books and show children when they are young how to be an ally.

I love this book. It's easy to understand and a simple concept centered around kindness and acceptance. Suitable for people of any age.

Noah is the best big brother ever, so when his little sister Joy sees some other kids bullying him and his boyfriend Miguel, she finds out what it means to be an ally. Using her out-of-this-world baking skills, and a dash of pride, Joy cooks up a recipe for success and acceptance.

This book is such a great introduction for young people to learn what it means to be an ally. Though there’s definitely room for further discussion, this is a brilliant starting point to begin a conversation. The book also includes some information for grown-ups on how to start a dialogue about queerness with young people. The discussion questions would work great in a classroom, at home, or anywhere else.

Really great and necessary book on what it means to be an ally, and how that can start from any age!