Be Who You Are is a new book out for transgender kids, written by Jennifer Carr and illustrated by Ben Rumback. Carr was kind enough to send me a copy of the book to give away to one of my readers.
The book tells the story of Nick, a child with a boy’s body who feels like a girl inside. His teachers do not understand—but his parents love him just the way he is. Be Who You Are models what it looks like for a transgender child to have a family who is 100% behind him, who seeks out the care required for children so different from their peers to feel wholly themselves. It’s the story of the self-respect that comes when your parents say, “Be who you are…We love you any way you feel.”
Every family of a transgender child should have this book. (Buy your copy here.) I would like to see Be Who You Are on every school bookshelf, in every public library, in every doctor’s waiting room—all the trusted places kids and parents go—so that children like Nick know that they are not alone. This book will introduce the gender-normative world to the idea that there are trans kids out there, and that there are parents who accept and love them. And it shows trans kids that they are okay, that they are loved, and that they are not alone.
In the end, Nick decides that she wants to be called Hope. Carr says, “When her parents called her Hope, she felt right for the very first time.”
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