Skip to main content

George

Book review by LifewithBeth

Summary:
George knows that she is a girl. But the rest of the world sees her as a boy. When George finds out about auditions for the school play, "Charlotte's Web", she desperately wants to land the role of Charlotte so that the rest of her world will finally acknowledge that she is not a boy. Slowly, George starts to let her family and school know that she is really Melissa, and that her body doesn't match her sense of self. The process is rocky and sometimes painful, but in the end, George delivers a hopeful and poignant reflection of the life of a transgender child. 

Strengths: 
One of the strengths of this book is that it is one of the few books for its genre. There isn't a whole lot of literature out there about trans characters and there are virtually none that are targeted for middle readers, like this book is. Gino's use of pronouns in the book is deliberate, with female pronouns when Melissa is talking about herself and male pronouns when others around her are describing her. I also think another strength of this book is that it shows the varying reactions people have to Melissa's coming out as trans. Some are cruel, others are supportive and many are just unsure of what to do with the whole situation. Reading about those reactions and the effect they have on Melissa helps the reader to empathize with her and may bring about some self reflection for those who know someone who is transgender. This book fills an incredibly important void and, in my opinion, should be part of any library that serves the 4-6th grade community. 

Interested in Other Books about Transgender Youth? Check out these!


 Gino, A. (2015). George. New York, NY: Scholastic. 



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

El Deafo

Summary:  When 4 year old Cece gets meningitis, her parents are scared. But she recovers and everything seems like it is going to be just fine, until they discover that Cece has suffered permanent hearing loss. Told through a graphic novel, Cece Bell's somewhat autobiographical story stars a world of bunnies where Cece navigates her first grade year while dealing with her deafness, wearing a hearing aid and making friends. She copes by creating an alter ego for herself, "El Deafo", the hearing aid wearing superhero. In the end, Cece gains confidence and learns to be more assertive with other people who just don't understand how their interactions with her can have an effect. Strengths: This graphic novel is geared towards a younger set of readers than most of the books I will be reviewing this fall in this blog, but it still has some value and strengths for the young adult reader. The theme of dealing with being different will resonate with young adult readers,...
Post a Comment
Read more

Bloom's Taxonomy for a Digital Age

Bloom's Taxonomy. One of the things we are constantly hearing in our school is the push for increased rigor in our classroom, as a result of the STAAR tests and others like it becoming more rigorous. We are told to push for higher order thinking and questioning from our students. One of the tools we use to look at how we can increase rigor is Bloom's Taxonomy. But some things about Bloom's don't translate exactly when we are talking about the digital age and the classroom or library. For example, remembering is the lowest piece of the triangle for Bloom's, but remembering looks different when you have instant access to a powerful computer that can use essentially limitless online resources to find answers. I've mentioned to my husband just how much more this and future generations will know about the world around them simply because they no longer have to remember everything they're interested in knowing. If I pass a historical marker for a place I haven...
7 comments
Read more

The Clark-Kozma Debate in the 21st Century

In the 1980s and 1990s, as educational technology was first becoming a budding field, Richard Clark published an analysis of data where he determined that the media that delivers instruction is no more than a delivery tool. He used an analogy of a truck carrying the information to the learner. He concluded that the media chosen has no effect on the learning taking place - that the instruction in the only thing that influences the learning.  In 1994, Kozma responded and prompted the current debate. Kozma states that some media have specific characteristics that do effect learning as more than a vehicle. While there is little research to support Kozma's claim, he suggests that the way the media helps shape the learning does have impact and that evaluating this impact requires more than raw data as the media and the way we use it has become more complex and nuanced. Clark has stood by his original conclusions and has even subsequently released articles further supporting his stanc...
2 comments
Read more