{"id":24719,"date":"2018-02-27T07:30:32","date_gmt":"2018-02-27T12:30:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=24719"},"modified":"2018-02-27T07:30:32","modified_gmt":"2018-02-27T12:30:32","slug":"mermaids-and-dressmakers-gender-and-fluidity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=24719","title":{"rendered":"Mermaids and Dressmakers, Gender and Fluidity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our local\u00a0schools have been embarking on renewed efforts to enrich the\u00a0diversity of their elementary and middle school classroom\u00a0libraries, and we’ve been helping them build their lists.\u00a0Last week, one\u00a0school principal contacted us in search of books about gender and asked for more suggestions. Her initial list had some great titles, and we were able to add some spectacular books from this season.
\n
\n<\/a>Juli\u00e1n is a Mermaid<\/em>\u00a0by Jessica Love, upcoming from Candlewick Press on May 22, is a picture book celebration of a boy who not only loves mermaids, but sees himself in their glorious swirls and grace and colors and style. He decks himself out in\u00a0his abuela’s fabrics and makeup\u2014and then, when she discovers him as his mermaid self, Juli\u00e1n (along with the reader) has a nervous moment about her reaction. Her face looks stern, then solemn, then betrays a loving and understanding twinkle as she hands Juli\u00e1n a necklace to complete his ensemble. Then she takes\u00a0him down to the seaside\u00a0to be part of a\u00a0celebratory\u00a0parade of mermaids, including\u00a0gender-illusionist mermaids. (New Yorkers\u00a0may recognize the Coney Island Mermaid Parade<\/a>.)
\nI love this book, and I love Candlewick for always being on the front lines of celebrating diversity in the most lush, artistic, and light-handed ways. They never\u00a0compromise artistic quality to make a social point. This isn’t the first book to celebrate boys who love to dress up in beautiful, traditionally feminine clothes, but it is one of the most beautiful ones, in part because Juli\u00e1n’s world is so alive\u2014it extends beyond a\u00a0narrow\u00a0circle out into the real world\u2014and in part because the simplicity and spareness of the text\u00a0allows space for mystery, for the reader to create the story along with the artist.
\n
\n
\nMy staffer Emily and I debated whether younger children will love the sophisticated palette as much as we do, and we are looking forward to finding that out. One thing that’s certain: any child who has ever felt the need to keep\u00a0some core piece of him or herself\u00a0secret\u00a0(and what child hasn’t, to one degree or another?) will appreciate Juli\u00e1n’s breathtaking moment of being fully seen\u2014and still loved. As for the\u00a0child readers\u00a0who share Juli\u00e1n’s gender fluidity? This is a\u00a0wildly validating,\u00a0beautiful book of acceptance.
\n
\n<\/a>
\nI picked up a copy of Jen Wang’s charming graphic novel, The Prince and the Dressmaker\u00a0(<\/em>published earlier this month by First Second) before I knew anything about the subject matter. When I realized that\u00a0it wasn’t a traditional fairy tale romance, that it was, in fact, about two characters who live outside the social norms, my heart beat faster with sheer joy. This was different! Hooray and hallelujah!
\nThe main character, Frances, is a hardworking seamstress with a flair for design. When one of her dresses steals the spotlight at an important ball, she is hired to work for a mysterious client who won’t show Frances her face. Except that\u00a0the client\u00a0turns out not to be a “her” at all \u2014\u00a0he is a young prince who loves high fashion and gorgeous dresses, but who must hide this side of himself to avoid disappointing his parents and his kingdom.\u00a0By day, the dutiful Prince Sebastien\u00a0keeps a busy schedule of meetings with princesses that his parents have arranged. By night (and occasionally in the daytime, too), he is\u00a0Lady Crystallia, who causes a great stir in Paris society with her incredible style, poise, charm, and grace. But because Lady Crystallia keeps her true identity a secret, Frances\u00a0is forced to keep her talent a secret, too, and the strain of that is wrenching. What’s great about this graphic novel isn’t just Prince Sebastien’s growth and self-acceptance, but also Frances’s narrative of strength: she grows increasingly confident and ambitious (in the good way), ultimately refusing to be rendered invisible.\u00a0The Prince and the Dressmaker<\/em> is\u00a0a sweet story of self-discovery, navigating friendship,\u00a0and building a life for oneself. I can’t wait to read whatever Jen Wang comes up with next. In the meantime,\u00a0since I missed it the first time around, I’ll be seeking out\u00a0her newly-reissued graphic novel\u00a0In Real Life<\/em>, co-authored with Cory Doctorow.
\n\"\"<\/a>
\nIt’s hard to describe to those\u00a0whose lives roughly fit the insider narratives we’ve all grown up with how incredible it feels\u2014even at my age, even with all of the privileges I have enjoyed in so many other ways in this culture\u2014how it feels to see outsider main characters, gay characters, gender-fluid characters, characters who don’t quite fit the usual acceptable roles, find themselves and love and friendship and full lives in children’s books.\u00a0I\u00a0never even\u00a0imagined I could\u00a0see my deep self in any book, an invisibility the depth of which didn’t even register with me until the first time I read a YA book with a gay character. And\u00a0every time I have one of these resonant moments, I think again of the deep thirst all children have to discover themselves in books, and the shocking\u00a0media invisibility that children of color have grown up with all their lives.
\nWhat would it have been like to grow up with these books? I’m thrilled that today’s kids have so many more\u00a0chances to see themselves. It’s about time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This season brings two exceptional books, one for young children, one for teens, celebrating gender fluidity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24719\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}