STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Martha Freeman got the bad news at lunch from her publisher and literary agent. Although "The Trouble With Babies" had received good reviews, the sales of her children's book about a young San Francisco girl were poor compared with the first title in her series, and the paperback rights would not be sold.
But more stunning was the reason: A brief passage buried in the book about two gay fathers and their adopted son apparently had discouraged many librarians across the country from buying the title. Although they had enthusiastically purchased Freeman's previous book, "The Trouble With Cats," the mere mention of the gay couple in her newest work raised the possibility of a public backlash.
In one case, a Pittsburgh-area mother who described herself as a Christian demanded that the book be removed, writing to an elementary school librarian that the author obviously had a "homosexual agenda" inappropriate for young readers. Soon afterward, the title was taken off the library shelves.
"You could have knocked me over with a feather," Freeman said recently, folding laundry in her home here near the Pennsylvania State University campus. "The story I wrote had nothing to do with gay issues, and the reference to those fathers was strictly in the background, to show you the kind of people who live on a city block."
Now, Freeman faces a dilemma: Her publisher, Holiday House, has asked her to produce a third installment, and she has not decided whether to retain the gay fathers, as an act of independence, or eliminate them in an effort to sell more books.
"Part of me is tempted to put in even more gay characters, because these are my stories and I really don't like being censored," she said. "But I write books at home to earn money and send my three kids to school. My future earnings could be hurt if I keep these two gay characters in the plot. So what should I do?"
At a time when gay culture is gaining wider acceptance in American society -- as reflected in television shows, movies, magazines, fashion trends and recent court decisions -- Freeman's experience is a reminder that sensitivities still run high on the issue, especially when it comes to marketing new books for younger children.
While there has been an explosion in the number of books with gay and lesbian themes written for teenagers, sales of similar titles for younger children in school and public libraries remain "very dicey and very different," said Roger Sutton, publisher of the Horn Book Magazine, a monthly that covers children's literature.
