A review by caseythecanadianlesbrarian
A Princess of Great Daring by Tobi Hill-Meyer, Elenore Toczynski
5.0
Cute illustrations!! I love the kids imagining who their prince or princess characters are, all highlighting different kinds of strengths!
So this is about a trans girl named Jamie (with lesbian moms!) going to meet up with her friends and tell them she's a girl for the first time. All the friends describe the princes they're going to play, and they ask Jamie "What kind of prince are you going to be?" Jamie replies: "Uh, I'm going to be a princess". And then she refuses to be rescued, and tells them she's going to be a "princess of great daring". And then they decide one of the princes is gonna be rescued!
This sounds heavy-handed but it's really not! It's super sweet and cute! It's just a story of a bunch of kids playing, with the illustrations shifting back and forth from "real life" and illustrating the castle / dragon / etc fairy tale world they are imagining.
Jamie comes out to her friends at the every end, and there's a definite plug for positive and respectful behaviour with trans people, which feels a bit didactic, but honestly, it's so awesome that this book is introducing and teaching kids about how to act with trans peers that I don't care.
Also Jamie is a totally tomboyish girl, and is wearing a t-shirt and jeans the whole time! Of course, there's nothing wrong with girls wearing dresses and skirts, but having recently read a middle grade novel about a trans girl that focused on girly clothes as like the only means of feminine gender expression, it was very refreshing to see this!!
Check out Flamingo Press: http://www.flamingorampant.com/index.html!
So this is about a trans girl named Jamie (with lesbian moms!) going to meet up with her friends and tell them she's a girl for the first time. All the friends describe the princes they're going to play, and they ask Jamie "What kind of prince are you going to be?" Jamie replies: "Uh, I'm going to be a princess". And then she refuses to be rescued, and tells them she's going to be a "princess of great daring". And then they decide one of the princes is gonna be rescued!
This sounds heavy-handed but it's really not! It's super sweet and cute! It's just a story of a bunch of kids playing, with the illustrations shifting back and forth from "real life" and illustrating the castle / dragon / etc fairy tale world they are imagining.
Jamie comes out to her friends at the every end, and there's a definite plug for positive and respectful behaviour with trans people, which feels a bit didactic, but honestly, it's so awesome that this book is introducing and teaching kids about how to act with trans peers that I don't care.
Also Jamie is a totally tomboyish girl, and is wearing a t-shirt and jeans the whole time! Of course, there's nothing wrong with girls wearing dresses and skirts, but having recently read a middle grade novel about a trans girl that focused on girly clothes as like the only means of feminine gender expression, it was very refreshing to see this!!
Check out Flamingo Press: http://www.flamingorampant.com/index.html!