"A narrative explanation of the phrase "friend of Dorothy," a phrase coined by the LGBTQ+ community in the United States starting in the 1940s"-- - (Baker & Taylor)

Two starred reviews!

From Newbery Honor and Stonewall Book Award–winning author Kyle Lukoff and celebrated picture book illustrator Levi Hastings comes an “venturesome, refreshingly frank” (Booklist, starred review) picture book about how people found community in a time when they had to keep their true selves secret.

“Are you a friend of Dorothy?”

In a time when the LGBTQ+ community was forced to hide in the shadows, a woman named Dorothy helped her people find each other in the dark and celebrate themselves in the light.

But who was Dorothy? Was she from the neighborhood, someone’s wife, mother, or sister? Was she that clever writer, who threw parties where there were no rules about who you could and couldn’t dance with? Or was she a girl from Kansas, who dreamed of leaving her black-and-white, small-town life and finding a vibrant, colorful world that loved her?

Dorothy might have been all these things—because Dorothy, as known by the post-WWII queer community, wasn’t real. Still, she helped a community find connection and care amidst adversity. - (Simon and Schuster)

Booklist Reviews

*Starred Review* Lukoff looks back to an undefined but relatively recent era, when, because it was both illegal and dangerous to be queer, the titular question was a sort of secret handshake. Along with suggesting several possible origins for the code word (it may have been a reference to libertine writer Dorothy Parker or to Judy Garland's character in The Wizard of Oz), the author gleefully describes how investigators for the U.S. Navy made fools of themselves searching for "Dorothy," thinking she was a real person who could be forced to name names. In more recent years, Lukoff writes, the query has fallen out of common use because a "secret language" is no longer quite so essential to "[keep] each other safe" and "find our community." Still, with a note of caution that is probably—and sadly— proper, he concludes that yes, "Dorothy" will always have friends, but still "learning about the ways we survived in the past could help people in the future." Hastings' informally drawn views of comically sinister-looking officials and convivial couples and larger groups both in and out of uniform keep the tone light. The inclusive spirit extends to a closing essay that unpacks some of the many possibilities in LGBTQ and urges readers to identify others using the words they themselves use. A venturesome, refreshingly frank reading for elementary-level audiences. Grades K-4. Copyright 2025 Booklist Reviews.