GEORGE

This is a guest review from returning reviewer, Pat Koelmel:

Ever wonder what it would be like to be born transgender? A female in a male’s body? Or vice versa? Probably not. My guess is that it’s not the kind of stuff a typical eight-to-twelve-year-old (the target audience for George, a 2015 middle grade novel about a transgender boy, by Alex Gino) thinks about. Or perhaps it is, given the recent publicity surrounding Olympic gold medalist Bruce (now Cait) Jenner. In fact, one might even think the book’s release had been intentionally timed with Jenner’s debut as a woman, but it would have taken a prediction from the likes of Nostradamus to have pulled off something like that. The book was conceived twelve years prior with no such thing in mind other than: “There should be a book about a trans kid.” 

Written in the third person, the author chose to use the feminine pronouns (she, her, herself) when referring to ten-year-old George. An excellent decision, by the way, as it never lets you forget who George is: a girl trapped in a boy’s body.

Unable to reveal her big secret to her divorced mom or best friend Kelly (the two most likely people in her life to understand), George finds solace in such simple things like applying ChapStick (she pretends it’s lipstick) and flipping through her hidden stash of magazine friends, a term she uses to describe the few girls’ magazines she’s managed to discreetly collect over time. When no one is watching, she gazes into the mirror, combs her hair forward into bangs, and calls herself Melissa. Phew, imagine trying to hide who you really are day in and day out … and from everyone you know.

At school, to avoid using the boy’s bathroom (it stinks of pee and bleach), George restricts her drinking throughout the day. And then there are the two bullies who thrive on tormenting George. Amazingly enough, it is their mean remarks (“He’s such a freaking girl …”) that come closest to getting who George really is.

A rare ray of good news enters George’s life when her fourth-grade class puts on the stage adaptation of the novel Charlotte's Web by E.B. White. She fantasizes herself in the girl’s role, the kind and wise spider Charlotte. George, however, is expected to audition for Wilbur the pig, like all the other boys. With Kelly’s support, George tries out for Charlotte anyway, but it goes over poorly with her teacher. She thinks George is joking around. As a result, George is inconsolable. “She [George] had genuinely started to believe that if people could see her onstage as Charlotte, maybe they would see that she was a girl offstage too.”

Even worse, Kelly gets the part. “It was bad enough that she [George] wouldn’t be Charlotte. Now she would have to listen to Kelly talk about it, and possibly nothing else, for the next three weeks.”

So what happens next? Is there a chance for a happy ending? Honestly, I wondered myself. Transgender stories, as a rule, do not end well. But rest assured that the author has treated this sensitive subject in an age appropriate way.

Last words: Read George. Just as the disfigured Auggie in R. J. Palacio’s bestselling middle grade novel Wonder (see Pat's review of 8/25/2014) tugged at the heart, so will Alex Gino’s trans kid George.

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: Once again, the creative Pat Koelmel reviews a book dealing with social awareness. What's your thought on this matter? I personally feel that...it is what it is. In another words, a person can't change what is innate, therefore he/she must be accepted into society as is.

For some reason this review reminded me of the pro tennis player, Renee Richards and the brouhaha that followed. Renee, who was Richard Raskind, underwent sex reassignment surgery in 1975. She was denied entry into the U.S. Open in 1976 because she was not born a women. The decision was later overturned in 1977. In the ensuing years, Renee did play competitively in the women's division, but I don't remember her ever winning a tournament. 

In 1984, in order to tell her story, she wrote Second Serve.