Wittlinger, E. (2007). Parrotfish. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers.
ISBN-10: 1416916229
ISBN-13: 9781416915222
•Plot Summary
Angela Katz-McNair has spent her entire life feeling like she was trapped in someone else's body, not the body of the boy he was meant to be. Now the time has come to change all that, and Angela has become Grady, making the shift from female to male at that most public of teen places-school. Grady's friends and family each have their own very individual responses to the news, some (like Grady's brother and father), taking the news better than others (like Grady's mother, sister, and Grady's former best friend, Eve). Grady's new friend, Sebastian, is writing a report on parrotfish, a species that can transition from female to male, and hopes that Grady will feel better about his own transition in seeing that he's not alone. When Eve finds out that her new "friend", Dayna, is planning to sabotage Grady, she has the courage to call Sebastian so that a plan can be laid to catch Danya in the act. The would-be saboteur loses most of her friends as a result, and Grady becomes an unsuspecting minor hero of the school.
The backdrop to the chaos is Grady's father's Christmas holiday traditions of putting up eight thousand decorations, and acting out a Dicken's style scenario (right down to the vests and Tiny Tim's crutch), despite the fact his wife is Jewish. Grady has fallen in love with Kita, his gorgeous classmate who has also stood up for him against Danya, but who ultimately ends up back with their friend, her ex boyfriend, Russ. Whereas it would have been easy to leave Grady as a hurt teen learning harsh lessons about being transgendered, the reader is instead given a wonderful Christmas play by the entire family (which now includes Sebastian, Eve, and the new family dog).
•Critical Evaluation
A simplistic look at life as a transgendered teen, which while it could have more intense, does a fairly good job of giving the uninformed a view into this phenomenon.
•Reader’s Annotation
Suitable for younger and older teens, a good introduction to the transgender experience through the eyes of a young person.
•Information about the author
•Genre
Realistic Fiction
•Curriculum Ties
Social Science
Sexual Education
•Booktalking Ideas
Transgendered persons, bullying
•Reading Level/Interest Age
Grades 9-12/Ages 14-19
•Challenge Issues
Possibility of individuals protesting that being transgendered is unnatural, but as Sebastian points out, these people can be shown precedents in the animal kingdom.
•Why did you include this book in you’re the titles you selected?
Book part of the curriculum, but I might have chosen it anyway, having had transgendered friends since college.
