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Are You a Boy or Are You a Girl? ISBN: 9781785922671
Fisher, Fox and Savage, Sarah
Published by Jessica Kingsley, 2017
Tiny and his family have moved house, and they must start school. The term ‘they’ is used purposely as Tiny sometimes feels like a boy and sometimes like a girl. They like to play dress-up, but they also love football. Even Tiny’s young sister asks if Tiny is a boy or a girl on any given day. The new school is bigger than Tiny’s old school, but everyone is friendly except Buster, who shouts, ‘Tiny, what a silly name. I can’t tell if it’s a girl or a boy.’ Teacher remonstrates: ‘…that’s rude. What does it matter if they are a boy or a girl.’ In spite of lots of the children being friendly, Buster continues to make trouble until the teacher makes him apologise, and Tiny begins to help Buster see that boys and girls are alike in many ways and that making differentiation isn’t important. The interesting thing about this picture book is that we never discover which gender Tiny is and that it isn’t important to the story. The illustrations are painterly and very evocative of the setting. A good story about a difficult subject to address in schools. Available from Amazon, from good book shops and from the publisher: www.jkp.com.
Age: 4+