Becoming Nicole: The Transformation of an American Family

After reading and discussing  Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult, my community book club decided to read a real life story about a transgender girl and what it has meant to her family. I'm not sure how our book club member had heard about Becoming Nicole: The Transformation of an American Family.

I guess I wasn't paying attention so I was expecting a memoir. It was a biography so not quite as intimate but still quite satisfactorily. I was especially interested in the different ways the mom and the dad reacted to identical twin to Jonas transition to Nicole and what it meant to Jonas to have his identical twin become Nicole.

If more people would be reading books like this, perhaps there would be more tolerance for people that are misunderstood by so many. I'm glad that I read this biography and look forward to discussing it with my book club next month.
 

George

One of my book clubs decided to select a banned book to read for our October meeting which falls right after Banned Book Week. George by Alex Gino showed up on so many of the lists of most banned books. We decided to go with this novel, a middle grade reader, so that we can really delve into why books are banned, why was this particular book was banned, and how we feel about all of it.

George is the story of a transgender fourth-grade girl who is getting ready to let those in her life who are important to her know that she is a girl. Reading this novel really made me think about parts of the coming out process for transgender youth that I hadn't thought about before. As I read, I kept wondering about how I would have discussed this novel as a teacher with one of my students. There is so much to discuss here, for both adults and children. `