Like That Eleanor: The Amazing Power of Being an Ally by Lee Wind with illustrations by Kelly Mangan; Cardinal Rule Press; (c) 2025; ISBN 9781945-369735; 32 pages; $17.95 on Amazon.
SAN DIEGO — Lee Wind asserts the books he writes could have changed his life back when he was a “young Gay Jewish kid.” His books preach diversity and inclusion — concepts that are an anathema to the second Trump administration.
However, Wind looks to a different U.S. presidential administration for inspiration — that of Franklin D. Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.
In this book written for children aged 4 to 10, two fathers have named their daughter Eleanor after the former First Lady. They tell her that Eleanor Roosevelt was dedicated to the belief that “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.”
When President Roosevelt’s press conferences were for male reporters only, Eleanor decided to hold press conferences for women reporters only.
When African-American singer Marian Anderson was denied a chance to sing at Constitution Hall (by the Daughters of the American Revolution), Eleanor Roosevelt arranged for Anderson to sing at the Lincoln Memorial.
When Eleanor Roosevelt was invited to appear in a racially segregated hall, where Blacks sat on one side of the aisle and Whites on the other side, the First Lady placed her chair in the aisle between them.
The stories told by her fathers, whose marriage was interracial, prompted little Eleanor to take action at her elementary school, where girls played with girls and boys played with boys, leaving a pupil named Star in a quandary. Non-binary, Star didn’t feel welcome in either group. Nor did Star know which bathroom to use.
So when the teacher called for a discussion group with boys on one side of the room and girls on the other, little Eleanor imitated big Eleanor and sat in the middle. The teacher recognized how kind little Eleanor’s gesture was, and soon everyone sat in a circle, regardless of gender.
And each bathroom was relabeled “everybody.”
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Donald H. Harrison is publisher and editor of San Diego Jewish World.