MORRIS
MICKLEWHITE AND THE TANGERINE DRESS
Written
and Illustrated by Christine Baldacchino
(Groundwood
Books, 2014)
10,000
DRESSES
Written
by Marcus Ewert
Illustrated
by Rex Ray
(Seven
Stories Press, 2008)
JACOB’S
NEW DRESS
By
Sarah and Ian Hoffman
(Albert
Whitman & Company, 2014)
I
love picture books more now than I did as a kid. They’ve gotten
better (although I still have a soft spot for Curious George books
and Are You My Mother?). As
a teacher, I regularly read picture books to my classes. The students
always got excited. As a principal, I continued my readings,
sometimes crashing a classroom and letting kids vote from five I’d
brought along. I began every staff meeting and
every PTA meeting with a picture book. If I tried to skip the
reading, parents would protest, “But this is why we came!” Yes,
we all like to be read to. We like to relax and marvel at playful
and/or intricate illustrations. We enjoy the careful word choice and
how a story can be told so concisely.
I
adore the funny ones (e.g., The Day the Crayons Quit;
Warning: Do Not Open This Book; I’d Really
Like to Eat a Child). I’m
captivated by the a-ha books (Flotsam; Way Home; The Other Side). And I’m amazed at how
picture books so ably tackle big issues, such as death (Zetta
Elliott’s Bird) and
illegal drugs
(Clark Taylor’s The House that Crack Built).
Check out any of these titles
from your local library. You may decide to add a picture book to your
regular book haul.
As
much as I could go on and on about picture books, I shall rein it in
and focus on a trio
that I wish I’d used in my education career, books that need a
gentle, curious adult to elicit a needed discussion on gender roles
and gender identity. As the titles make clear, these are books about
boys who wear dresses: Morris Micklewhite and the Tangerine
Dress, 10,000 Dresses
and Jacob’s New
Dress.
First
up, Morris. He lives with mother Moira and his cat Moo. (Yes, the
alliteration is a little heavy at the get-go.) Morris is one of
those youngsters who likes many things. “Mondays are great,” we
are told, “because on Mondays, Morris goes to school.” So many of
the things he likes happen there. What Morris likes most is center
time, when he chooses to play dress-up. That’s when he gets to wear
the tangerine dress which “reminds him of tigers, the sun and his
mother’s hair.” He loves the swishes and crinkles he hears while
moving in the dress and the click, click, clicks from the shoes he
wears with it. But, “[s]ometimes the boys make fun of Morris.
Sometimes the girls do, too.” Soon Morris doesn’t want to go to
school.
On
the title page of 10,000 Dresses, we
see Bailey, smiling and wearing a simple white t-shirt and underwear.
The message: this is a boy. But the story opens, perhaps jarringly
with, “Every night Bailey dreamed about dresses.” There’s some
awkward language about a stairway in a “red Valentine castle”
that had me frowning, but this is more of a message book than a
literary marvel. Bailey’s dreams involve dresses of
rainbow-flashing crystals and lilies, roses and honeysuckles. Her
dreams are instantly dashed by her parents. (Yes, this 2008 book uses
preferred pronouns of she and her for Bailey.) “You’re a boy,”
his mom says. “Boys don’t wear dresses!”
And
Bailey’s response is heartbreaking: “But...I don’t feel like a
boy.”
Jacob’s
New Dress goes down the same
path. Boy likes wearing dresses. Other boys don’t understand and
make fun of him. Boy learns to be himself/herself regardless. Of the
three, this one felt more for adults than kids. As I read it, I was
more focused on the hesitancy and
mixed messages of the adults.
Despite the fact Jacob’s teacher says, “The dress-up corner is
where...you can be a dinosaur, a princess, a farmer—anything!”,
she then says to Jacob, “What new thing could you imagine being? A
firefighter? A policeman.” Jacob resists her guidance and answers,
“I’m the princess.” Yay, Jacob! His
mom doesn’t let Jacob wear his home dress to school, explaining,
“It would get dirty at school.” And when Jacob makes his own
dress out of towels—surely that can get dirty—his dad frowns and
says, “Put on some shorts and a shirt under that dress-thing.”
The end page of this book includes an authors’ note and an
educational note about “pink boys” and “gender-nonconforming
children”. I think the story speaks for itself.
There
have always been Morrises and Baileys and Jacobs. But, in my day,
they would have to change. They would have to don and dream of
dresses in secret. Either that or the bullying would be relentless,
stretching from kindergarten to the great beyond. Morris would be
mocked as “Margaret.” “Melissa.” Or the much-maligned,
all-purpose sissy taunt: “Nancy.” But we’re in a time now when
most recognize that it’s everyone else that needs to adjust. Morris
is just being Morris. Bailey can be whoever she wants. Let Jacob
wears what he likes. Why should anyone have a problem with that?
Sadly,
they still do. As early as kindergarten, boys know to avoid pinks and
purples and to leave the dolls alone in the play centers...unless
they are being used to fire out of a make-believe cannon. Traditional
(or conforming) gender roles are already established, whether it’s
due to nature, nurture or a combination.
A
colleague of mine shared how she refused to buy toy guns or other
weaponry for her two boys and yet, even before they learned to wave,
they were using their thumb and index finger to form a quick-draw
gun. Bang! Bang! As I shopped for my cousin’s baby shower this
summer, I was dismayed that so much, from cards to gift bags to
stuffed animals, came only in pink or blue. Baby Jack’s nursery is
painted green and adorned with gray whales, crabs and octopuses. I
am further reminded of a fascinating New York Times article
about trying to reverse gender roles and also teach gender
neutrality: “In Sweden’s Preschools, Boy Learn to Dance and Girls Learn to Yell”.
Some
may indeed be entrenched (and most comfortable) in their typical male
or female gender identification. The point is to open their eyes to
the fact it’s okay for others to express themselves differently and
to open the door for others to explore a more fluid or less typical
gender identity.
These
are important books to read and discuss with
children, perhaps more than once over a period of years. Despite
greater awareness of Morris, Bailey and
Jacob, gender-role and
gender-identity defying boys remain a minority. It is easy for peers
to find their behaviors and preferences queer,
in the “odd” sense of the word. If a child’s first
reaction—i.e., a boy wearing a dress is odd—is not elicited and
considered,
then the opportunity for transformational learning decreases. A child
may listen to the story and go away unchanged, still reacting
critically when he or she observes another child acting outside of
gender norms. Ridicule goes
underground. Then it’s a burden for the targeted child to have to
muster the courage to report or to have bear on his own.
Books
like these seek to increase awareness and acceptance to reduce
burdens. They also provide safe reference points for parents,
teachers and children. “Remember when we read that book about
Morris and the orange dress...?”
These
books are worth reading, perhaps a week or a month apart. I
wish they’d been around and read to me when I was a kid. It
helps kids to know that Morris Micklewhite and the
Tangerine Dress (or 10,000
Dresses or Jacob’s
New Dress) isn’t some one-off
book. Beyond the fact the
main characters wear dresses, there
are positive traits about each
character that should be elicited from the reading audience. The
boys-wearing-dresses images may be vivid takeaways but there is more
to admire about Morris, Bailey and
Jacob.
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