Narrators Ellie and Casey from author Cassandra Jules Corrigan’s The Pronoun Book are back to explain even more about different forms of gender identity and expression. Ellie and Casey are conversational, friendly guides, aided by a range of other characters who pop up to explain their various identities. The tone of the text is clearly pedagogical, but it feels approachable and rooted in the experiences of actual people, as each character offers first-person observations about what their gender means to them.
The book feels a little more advanced than other titles such as Being You: A First Conversation About Gender or They, He, She: Words for You and Me, looking not only at what it means to be cisgender, transgender, intersex, and nonbinary, but at a variety of nonbinary identities, including genderqueer, demiboy, demigirl, agender, greygender, neutrois, androgyne, omnigender, and more. Corrigan doesn’t get into too many nuances here—e.g., the book doesn’t explore differences between neutrois and androgyne, but young readers will get a general sense of the terms and perhaps be inspired to learn more if they feel like one or more of them resonates with their own identity or that of someone they know.
Notably, too, the book looks at the intersection of gender identity and neurodivergence, explaining that neurodivergent people created the term “gendervague,” which describes “people who can’t define their gender because of their neurodivergence or whose gender and neurodivergence are closely related.” Several characters then give examples of how this applies to their own genders. This is the first middle-grade book I’m aware of that looks at this topic.
I would not recommend this as an introductory book to gender identity, however; I’d start with one of the aforementioned titles before potentially overwhelming kids with information about the variety of identities mentioned here—but if a young person is already familiar with the basics of gender identities, whether from a book, lived experience, or other means, then this might be a next book of interest.
While it offers more detail than the simpler titles noted above, I’d put it before the excellent Gender Identity for Kids in terms of age level. Gender Identity for Kids is a little more text heavy and goes into more detail about social biases and assumptions around gender (though it doesn’t discuss all of the many different identities mentioned in The Gender Book). That’s not a judgment of either book, just a guideline for adults looking to assess them for the right age and level of learning.
Backmatter includes a Glossary and a Gender Comparison Activity.
