An invaluable resource for all young people on a gender quest.
An open-ended workbook offers young people questioning their gender identity tools for thinking, feeling, and strategizing.
Introductory chapters lay out such basic concepts as gender identity, gender expression, and differences between sex and gender. Later chapters discuss various areas of life where gender comes into play, from family to school and work to dating and sex. Information is presented in brief, straightforward segments, but exercises for readers form the bulk of each chapter. The authors use an expansive variety of approaches, from observational exercises to drawing prompts to asking readers to circle words that describe their feelings. What makes this book so powerful is the balance the authors strike between asking open-ended questions and offering readers tools from which to build answers. A segment on socioeconomic status asks a series of practical questions starting with "are there any parts of your gender exploration that will cost money?" A table for planning "experiments," such as wearing a men's shirt, prompts readers with questions about location, materials, and safety considerations. One chapter in particular focuses on religious, ethnic, and other identities that intersect with gender, and both the inclusive nature of the questions and the broad range of example scenarios throughout make the book well-suited to a diverse readership.
An invaluable resource for all young people on a gender quest. (supplemental Web content) (Nonfiction. 12-18)Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-62625-297-4
Page Count: 168
Publisher: New Harbinger
Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
A winner.
The trials of a high school basketball team trying to clinch the state title and the graphic novelist chronicling them.
The Dragons, Bishop O’Dowd High School’s basketball team, have a promising lineup of players united by the same goal. Backed by Coach Lou Richie, an alumnus himself, this could be the season the Oakland, California, private Catholic school breaks their record. While Yang (Team Avatar Tales, 2019, etc.), a math teacher and former National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, is not particularly sporty, he is intrigued by the potential of this story and decides to focus his next graphic novel on the team’s ninth bid for the state championship. Yang seamlessly blends a portrait of the Dragons with the international history of basketball while also tying in his own career arc as a graphic novelist as he tries to balance family, teaching, and comics. Some panels directly address the creative process, such as those depicting an interaction between Yang and a Punjabi student regarding the way small visual details cue ethnicity in different ways. This creative combination of memoir and reportage elicits questions of storytelling, memory, and creative liberty as well as addressing issues of equity and race. The full-color illustrations are varied in layout, effectively conveying intense emotion and heart-stopping action on the court. Yang is Chinese American, Richie is black, and there is significant diversity among the team members.
A winner. (notes, bibliography) (Graphic nonfiction. 13-18)Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-62672-079-4
Page Count: 448
Publisher: First Second
Review Posted Online: Dec. 20, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
A beautiful meditation on the tender, fraught interior lives of Black boys.
The acclaimed author of Between the World and Me (2015) reflects on the family and community that shaped him in this adaptation of his 2008 adult memoir of the same name.
Growing up in Baltimore in the ’80s, Coates was a dreamer, all “cupcakes and comic books at the core.” He was also heavily influenced by “the New York noise” of mid-to-late-1980s hip-hop. Not surprisingly then, his prose takes on an infectious hip-hop poetic–meets–medieval folklore aesthetic, as in this description of his neighborhood’s crew: “Walbrook Junction ran everything, until they met North and Pulaski, who, craven and honorless, would punk you right in front of your girl.” But it is Coates’ father—a former Black Panther and Afrocentric publisher—who looms largest in his journey to manhood. In a community where their peers were fatherless, Coates and his six siblings viewed their father as flawed but with the “aura of a prophet.” He understood how Black boys could get caught in the “crosshairs of the world” and was determined to save his. Coates revisits his relationships with his father, his swaggering older brother, and his peers. The result will draw in young adult readers while retaining all of the heart of the original.
A beautiful meditation on the tender, fraught interior lives of Black boys. (maps, family tree) (Memoir. 14-18)Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-984894-03-8
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
