It Feels Good To Be Yourself

This book, written by Theresa Thorn and illustrated by Noah Grigini, was published in 2019, and is the latest edition to my book collection. This is one of those rather didactic books without much storyline, but I still like it. The images are vibrant and offer their own stories of people with their families out and about in the community. Just through looking at the images, many helpful conversations could be had. There’s been a very clear effort to include a variety of gender expressions, sexualities, races and disabilities. In on image a child covers their ears because their brother is talking loudly – I’m not sure if it’s intentional, but my first thought was that a lot of gender diverse kids are autistic and a lot of autistic kids are sensitive to noise. So little elements like this might help kids see themselves and start conversations.

At the back there are helpful notes for educators and parents/carers including a glossary of terms, an excellent note about pronouns, book recommendations and other (mostly US based) resource recommendations. This is worth adding to your collection. Watch out though, there’s a typo (“three and and a half”) that you might stumble over when reading out-loud when tired!

You can check it out before buying it here.

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