A Book About Gender Identity
by Theresa Thorn
Illustrated by Noah Grigni
4 stars
Informative and encouraging.
A sweet book presenting a variety of gender identities through its characters. It discusses being a girl, a boy, both, and neither. A great place to start having conversations with young children about gender identity and expression.
Through its text and artwork, it shows various ways of being a girl, a boy, and nonbinary, and the fluidity of gender. The book encourages kids to voice their gender identities, whether it matches what those around them think or not, and take pride in who they are. I especially love that it embraces not knowing, showing it’s okay if you’re still figuring out who you are and recognizing that identity can change over time.
The book briefly discusses babies being assigned a gender at birth. It keeps the process quite vague, allowing caregivers to share the level of detail that is right for their child.
The artwork in this book is fantastic. Beautiful use of bold colors and wonderful details. Throughout the pages, the characters express their genders in a variety of ways. There is also great diversity in the characters, both the named and background characters, including LGBTQ characters, a character who uses a wheelchair, a hijabi character, and characters with different skin tones and facial features.
The backmatter contains a glossary of terms, a note on pronouns, further resources for adults and children, and notes from the author and illustrator about their experiences and connections to this book.
A wonderful book that encourages children to be themselves and embrace their identities, whatever they may be, and promotes respecting others’ identities. Such a sweet message of acceptance, encouragement, reassurance, and pride in yourself.