10,000 Dresses Celebrates Transgender Children
Filed by: Dana Rudolph
February 19, 2009 2:00 PM
http://www.bilerico.com/2009/02/10000_dresses_celebrates_transgender_chi.phpBeginning with the vibrant sunburst and smiling child on its cover, Marcus Ewert's 10,000 Dresses is a joyous book about self-acceptance and identity. It is also the only children's picture book that features an openly transgender protagonist, and does so with both sensitivity and celebration.
Young Bailey dreams of 10,000 beautiful dresses made of crystals, rainbows, flowers, and magical windows. "Boys don't wear dresses," her mother, father, and brother each tell her. Bailey replies, "But . . . I don't feel like a boy," to which her family responds, "Well, you are one, Bailey, and that's that."
It is only after meeting Laurel, an older girl who befriends Bailey over their shared love of dresses, that Bailey is able to see her creations come to life.
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10,000 Dresses is the first children's book from Ewert, whose writings have appeared in such works as the 2004 Lambda Literary Award-winning anthology I Do/I Don't: Queers on Marriage (ed. Greg Wharton and Ian Philips). Ewert also created Piki and Poko, an animated cartoon airing on Logo, but aimed at an older audience.
