Ben loves painting his nails because he simply loves the cheerful colors. His mother is happy to share her collection of nail polish with him (and we see in the illustration that his dad is watching approvingly). He also enjoys painting his nails with his friend Margarita.
One day, however, two boys start teasing him that “Painting your nails is for girls. You’re a girl!” Ben feels terrible. His dad paints his nails in support—but the teasing at school continues (although Margarita stands up for him). Ben decides to only wear nail polish on the weekends, but to remove it for school—but both the cheerful colors and Ben’s cheeriness are gone.
On Ben’s birthday, however, he arrives bare-nailed at school—only to find that the teacher and all of the students, “every single one of the boys and girls,” had painted their nails as a birthday present for him. (While there’s no indication here that Ben is nonbinary—and it would have been too much of a tangent to explain what being nonbinary is, since that’s not the point of this story—it would have been more inclusive of all genders to say something like “every single one of the students, including the boys.”)
The message that colorful nails are for everyone is a good one, and the family support, particularly from Ben’s dad, is admirable. The story leaves one wondering, however, what happened to the children who were teasing Ben. Were they part of the nail-wearing class? Were they spoken to about their behavior? Did they learn their lesson? Some adults may find the open-endedness of the tale leaves room for discussion, although others might wish the bullies didn’t slip away quite so effortlessly.
Ben and his family are White.
