A Jewish nine-year-old named Joey wants to tell others the truth: that she’s a girl, not a boy like they think she is. She’s afraid her parents won’t understand, though. One Shabbat evening, however, Joey’s dad starts to give Joey and her brother and sister the traditional blessings for children, one for the boys and one for the girls. Joey doesn’t want the boys’ blessing, but can’t find the words to explain, so refuses any blessing. The next day, however, she is finally able to tell her family that she knows in her heart she’s a girl. Her parents respond that they’ll love her no matter what.
The family tries their best (with a few mistakes) to use Joey’s new pronouns. Soon, Joey feels happy and safe at home and more sure than ever that she’s a girl. She wants to start living as a girl at school and she wants the right blessing on Shabbat. Her parents are fully supportive, though they admit there’s a lot to figure out: “But we will do it together, one step at a time.” The story ends with Joey getting the girls’ blessing from her father, awash in family love.
My only concern with this affirming story is that it begins by telling us that Joey finds it easier to talk with girls than with most boys, and jumps from this to explaining that Joey “knew she couldn’t keep living as a boy, feeling uncomfortable and misunderstood.” Will some readers assume this means that if one finds it easier to talk with peers of a different gender, then they should live as that gender? That’s not, presumably, what the authors intended, but feels like it could be misinterpreted that way, just because of how the brief text of a picture book condenses Joey’s journey to self-understanding. Adults may wish to stress to young readers that (as the book goes on to explain) it is really what Joey feels in her heart that is driving her, not simply her external friendships.
With that caution, this is a recommended title that should be welcomed by Jewish families and educators. The book, by Rabbi Samantha Orshan Kahn, mother of a trans girl, and Rabbi Kerry Olitzky, a Sydney Taylor Book Award-winning author and leader in Jewish education, has a clear pedagogical purpose (for both young readers and their adults), but conveys it with warmth and authenticity.
Backmatter explains more about the traditional blessings for boys and girls and gives a gender-neutral option.
Olitsky’s previous book about a trans girl, Just Like Queen Esther (co-authored with Rabbi Ari Moffic), centers a protagonist who has already socially transitioned but is finding ways to feel more confident in herself; The Right Blessing stars a girl at an earlier part of her journey. Families and libraries may wish to have both.
Joey and her family are White.
