This latest book in the series that includes The Boy with Big, Big Feelings and The Girl with Big, Big Questions looks at another big concept—ideas—this time with a nonbinary protagonist.
The unnamed, nonbinary kid in this rhyming ode to creativity has “glittery nails” and “colorful socks” and is known “for thinking outside of the box.” What if kids could be mermaids and swim to school? they wonder. What if we could teach our pets to talk? What if everyone was accepted and everyone was kind?
The grown-ups often dismiss their ideas as just those of “an imaginative child.” After hearing this repeatedly, the kid begins to wonder if they should just stay silent, since they’ll only be misunderstood.
But when they hear someone on the news talking about children’s issues, they wonder why children aren’t involved in these conversations. With the encouragement of their Gran, they come up with a plan to hold community conversations, at which grown-ups bring (unspecified) problems to kids and listen to their ideas for solving them. These would be a time for people “of all ages and stages” to come together and “solve problems with their imaginations.” Soon, we read, grown-ups and kids are gathering together to help make the world a better place.
The solution feels a little simplistic and some of the rhymes feel forced. It also feels disingenuous to equate a kid’s idea for swimming to school with the idea of making social change; one really can’t fault the adults who dismissed the former (though one hopes they did so kindly). Nevertheless, the book leaves readers plenty of room for discussing actual problems that they feel need addressing in the world, and how kids might help to solve them. If the book sparks such real conversations, there’s value in that—and it’s great to see a child who happens to be nonbinary setting the example here, to remind us that nonbinary kids can be leaders, too.
The kid and their Gran are both White.
