I read Alex Gino’s middle grade book GEORGE this week and was overcome with both sadness for the past and hope for the future.
I still have the dog-eared copy of “Marvin K Redpost; is He a Girl?” that my daughter Alice stole from the Westlake school library while she was masquerading as a 10-year-old boy. I wouldn’t understand its significance until she revealed herself at fifteen, but the story of a boy accidentally kissing his elbow and turning into a girl was the closest connection Alice found in her grade school library.
You see, GEORGE is the book Alice needed.
And rather than the Freaky-Friday farce of Marvin Redpost, it is the book she deserved.
“When people look at George, they think they see a boy. But she knows she's not a boy. She knows she's a girl.
George thinks she'll have to keep this a secret forever. Then her teacher announces that their class play is going to be Charlotte's Web. George really, really, REALLY wants to play Charlotte. But the teacher says she can't even try out for the part . . . because she's a boy.
With the help of her best friend, Kelly, George comes up with a plan. Not just so she can be Charlotte -- but so everyone can know who she is, once and for all.”
Published by Scholastic Press, with smashing reviews (including The School Library Journal), Gino’s GEORGE brings transgender voices and characters into the school library mainstream. Age appropriate for 8-12 year olds and engaging enough for a quick adult read, I’d like to shove GEORGE in every pre-teen reader’s stocking and slip it onto grade school shelves everywhere.
Books like GEORGE will pave the way for a new generation of transgender allies and ensure that the questioning kid thumbing through the school library can finding their own experiences reflected there.