10,000 Dresses celebrates transgender children
Bay Windows
By Dana Rudolph
Thursday Jan 29, 2009
http://www.baywindows.com/index.php?ch=columnists&sc=mombian&id=86045 (http://www.baywindows.com/index.php?ch=columnists&sc=mombian&id=86045)
Beginning 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."