Cartoon Network’s Steven Universe has developed a dedicated fan following due to its lovable characters, colorful animation, and an eagerness to respectfully explore topics that other shows ostensibly targeted to kids don’t usually touch, like sex and gender. The show is about a team of alien warriors called Gems who protect the world with their special powers, and though they’re technically just magical gemstones, they all identify as female in their humanoid forms. That bit is important because an episode that aired earlier this year called “The Answer” officially introduced a lesbian romance to the show—and to the show’s many kid viewers.
Now, Steven Universe creator Rebecca Sugar has announced a new children’s book that will be based on that episode’s story. Sugar announced the book on her Tumblr, and it will reportedly expand on relationship between two Gems named Ruby and Sapphire who fall in love and fuse together (it’s a metaphor) to form the Steven Universe character known as Garnet. The book, appropriately titled The Answer, will be available in September.
Hopefully, the book’s story of a touching same-sex romance won’t get butchered by edits in the U.K., like what happened to a different Steven Universe episode that featured an apparently inappropriately intimate glance between two of the other Gems. The U.K. edit cut out the glance but left in a heterosexual kiss, which The A.V. Club’s Kevin Johnson referred to as “quaint, jokey, and, quite frankly, a bit troubling.”
The cover for The Answer is below:
[via io9]