This bright board book is ostensibly a poem from parent to child, but as is often the case with board books, it’s really a reminder to parents to parent with openness, particularly around gender. “Maybe you like blue. Maybe you like pink. Maybe you believe gender is something to rethink,” the poem says, before giving parents words to avow that they won’t judge, won’t impose their own preconceptions, and will support their child no matter what career they choose or what gender they turn out to be.
One page shows a father with a short-haired child who reads as a boy, but the facing page shows the child, now a teen or grown, with long hair and wearing a dress, seemingly a trans girl/woman. “And as you find what’s authentic & true/I’ll be here to love/every version of you,” the text says.
Some of the words (“stereotypes,” “possibility,” “impose,” “authentic”) are well above most board book readers’ vocabularies, but again, the audience is as much parents as children. The kids will likely enjoy the bright, bold colors with splashes of neon pink, and the rhythm of the rhymes (though they occasionally stumble). It’s an affirming book to grow with.
Children and adults in the book are depicted with a variety of skin and hair tones.
