Then I pluck out The Paper Bag Princess, Elena's Serenade, and William's Doll.
When this happens (and it happens more than you would think) I tend to begin with the stories that can be interpreted multiple ways, like The Story of Ferdinand. I had a graduate student come up to my reference desk the other day asking for picture books where the characters acted out non-traditional gender roles. The kinds of dresses that "show us ourselves." So she does and the two of them construct dresses hung with mirrors. She has the sewing skills, but she lacks dress ideas. It isn't until Bailey meets an older girl living nearby with a complementary problem that things start looking up. Father has a similar reaction too, and as for Bailey's older brother it's a miracle he doesn't beat her up right then and there. "Boys don't wear dresses!" Bailey doesn't feel much like a boy, but that appears to be besides the point. But when she asks her mom for a dress like the one in her dreams the answer is unsurprising. Gorgeous dresses, 10,000 in all, that are everything Bailey has always wanted. Dresses that show windows to other worlds. Beautiful dresses hung with crystals or created out of the petals of lilies and roses. It's nighttime once again and you know what Bailey's dreaming about? Dresses. Yet if there is room on a library's shelves for books for kids who want to be pilots, want to be gymnasts, and want to be president, how much more specialized is it to carry a book where kids want to wear dresses? Particularly boy-type kids? A need has now been filled. And I know too that 10,000 Dresses could be seen as a picture book catering to only a very specific situation as a result. I know that there are boys out there who like to wear dresses, and I know that there are other kids out there who would find the practice strange and an excuse to be mean. I think of this article when I think of Marcus Ewart and Rex Ray's 10,000 Dresses. It was a supportive article, one that could easily have gone in another direction had the child had less open and accepting parents. In the end they talked it over with the school, then coached their son on how to deal with kids who made fun of him for his choices.
They didn't mind it in the home, but when he wanted to start wearing dresses to school the parental units weren't sure how to handle the situation. The boy liked wearing dresses, and pretty much preferred to wear them all the time. It was a true story of two parents trying to figure out how to deal with their young son.
However, a year or so ago this periodical carried a story I hadn't really heard before. For all intents and purposes Cookie magazine is not the kind of publication I read regularly (in that I make less that $250,000 a year).
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