In this allegorical tale, a child named Nisha introduces us to her monster—a monster that follows her everywhere. While the monster used to be small, it has begun to grow. Every time someone calls her a boy, calls her by a boy’s name, or tells her she must use the boys’ bathroom, it gets bigger. When her teacher says she must play soccer on the boys’ team, it grows “bigger than a giant,” depicted as a swirling black cloud with eyes.
“Something just doesn’t feel right” when Nisha is called a boy, she explains. She wants her monster to go away. The monster only listens to others and their incorrect, negative comments, however. Soon, it is preventing her from doing things, like swimming at the beach and accepting friends’ invitations to play. Nisha feels alone and not like herself.
One day, however, Nisha’s dad introduces her to Jack, who has a monster just like hers. Jack explains that when we are born, “a doctor announces if we are a boy or a girl,” but sometimes, the doctor isn’t right. “When that happens, people like you and me, will get a visit from our gender dysphoria monster. Our monster is that little voice that knows who we are, and who we want to be when we grow up, and it doesn’t like to be ignored!”
Jack explains to Nisha that he told some adults about his feelings, who supported him in using his new name and pronouns. Now, the monster “very rarely” visits, and “it’s very small and quiet.” Nisha takes his advice; her parents and school are supportive, and she is much happier about herself. Her monster shrinks into a cute yellow creature, like Jack’s, but Nisha is okay when it visits, because “I know what it’s trying to tell me.”
Importantly, the book concludes, “And in time, I grew up to become the happy, smiling woman I always wanted to be.” I love that line, which offers transgender children something perhaps too rarely seen but much needed: a vision of themselves as happy adults, living as the gender they know themselves to be.
An Adults’ Guide in the back offers “Useful Terminology and Explanations.”
As a cisgender person, I recognize my limits in evaluating this book, beyond noting that the story feels well-paced, with a vocabulary matched to the target age range, and expressive illustrations by Hui Qing Ang. Nisha has light brown skin; her mom is the same, and her dad’s skin is much lighter. I will merely add that it does seem to echo what I’ve heard from some trans people, at least, about their childhood experiences, and I trust author Laura Kate Dale, who is trans, to know better than I. Cisgender readers in particular, though, should be careful about assuming it reflects all trans people’s experiences. For those whose experiences it does echo, however, it could be lifesaving.
