Charly is looking for a Halloween costume that shows “they were both a boy and a girl.” They dig through their costume box, but none seem quite right. When they try on a Red Riding Hood costume, “their boy half felt eaten by the wolf.” The Dracula costume, however, “took at bite out of their girl half.”
Finally, they have an idea, and craft the perfect costume for themselves from both Dracula and Red Riding Hood. On Halloween, one other kid says the costume is “wacky,” two asked what it was, and three said it was “wonderful.” I appreciate that the emphasis is on the positive, even though there’s a nod to a range of responses. (Not that there aren’t sometimes negative responses to nonbinary expression—but not every book has to delve into that. Sometimes modeling positivity is better.) Charly twirls proudly in the costume they made that makes them feel “one-hundred percent Charly.” Their delight in their solution and in themselves shines through.
An author’s note informs readers that there are many nonbinary identities, and that Charly is bigender, thinking of themselves as equally male and female. It explains the variations of bigender identities with only the pronouns they/she/he, however; a mention of neopronouns (e.g., xe, ze) might have been helpful. That’s a small point, though. This volume about a queer kid finding their own solution to a problem—and the problem not being their identity or people’s reaction to it—is upbeat and welcome.
Charly has medium-brown skin and dark brown hair.
