Are some toys only for girls? Or for boys? What about colors? Are all boys strong? Do all girls wear dresses? Shouldn’t everyone feel free to play with and wear what they like? This book asks these questions and more to encourage readers to examine gender stereotypes—but also explores concepts like gender identity, pronouns, same-sex love, diverse families, and bias against people whose gender identities, expressions, or roles don’t fit what others may think is right. That’s a lot to cover, but author/illustrator Elise Gravel, in collaboration with Mykaell Blais, a transgender man who works with LGBTQ youth, have managed to distill these concepts into simple but accurate explanations, along with questions for discussion, to create a book that is both informative and interactive.
In explaining what one’s “sex” is, for example, they say, “We are born with small differences in our bodies. This is our sex.” Unlike some other books that focus on genitalia or that use terms like “biological sex” (which doesn’t fully capture all of the differences that may occur between bodies and that many transgender people dislike), Gravel and Blais take a “less is more” approach that feels both correct and inclusive. They also note that some people “are born in bodies that aren’t all female or male” and “Scientists call us intersex.” That’s a great explanation in that it doesn’t focus on genitalia or even body parts (since being intersex can also involve hormonal or chromosomal differences and not just parts; the book doesn’t go into that, but it leaves room for that truth). They then explain that gender identity is “how we feel inside,” and show examples of various children explaining their gender identities, e.g., “I feel I’m both a boy and a girl at the same time.”
The book also tells us that throughout history, people have been told they shouldn’t do things based on their genders, such as women voting or men caring for babies. Some laws even tried to restrict who people could love. “Do you think all people should love whoever they want?” it asks.
Although they look at gender-based biases, they also note that many people have done what they wished, despite what people said about them, including Edward T. Lyon, the first male nurse in the U.S. Army; Richard John Baker and James Michael McConnell, the first male couple to legally marry in the U.S.; Sarah McBride, who was called a boy when she was little, but who was elected to the Delaware Senate (readers will have to infer “as the woman that she is” from the image of McBride); and We’Wha, a two-spirit Zuni Mexican (though it would have been nice to know what We’Wha did).
The illustrations in Pink, Blue, and You! are cartoon-style and cheery. “Fun Facts” at the end include interesting tidbits like pink being for boys and blue for girls 100 years ago, and that both male and female crew members in Star Trek wore “skants,” a combination of a skirt and pants. (True, though they should have said “some” crew members, as not all did, and specified “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” as skants were not in every Star Trek series.)
What gives this book special appeal, however, is that it always asks readers questions after conveying information. For example, after the biographical blurbs above, we read, “Do you know anyone who followed their dreams?” It’s an interactive approach also used by the 2021 book Being You: A First Conversation About Gender, which covers similar ground. Being You is a board book, and so may arguably appeal to younger children, but its content feels geared towards children just above board book age as well. Pink, Blue, and You! uses a few vocabulary words (“complicated,” “unfortunately,” “government”) that place it just a smidge after Being You in terms of target age, but there’s a lot of overlap. I recommend them both.
