It was hard not to feel for her but at the same time she seemed a little one-note- sensitive, timid, and basically devoid of any traits that were not stereotypically feminine. While I was sympathetic to George’s character throughout, I couldn’t help finding her a little bit harder to be fully invested in. However, I’d never read a book about a transgendered person that was for kids before (as far as I know, books like that didn’t even exist until very recently.) I’m cisgender but I occasionally like to read books that have main characters who are trans. I haven’t read any juvenile fiction for years, not since I was a teenager, but this book had gotten so much hype I decided I needed to at least give it a try. Unsurprisingly she’s afraid how her family and peers will react and she throws herself wholeheartedly into auditioning on playing Charlotte in her school’s theatrical production of ‘Charlotte’s Web.’ There’s a bit of a dispute over George playing a female character (especially when there’s so many girls already interested in the role) but George is determined to make the character her own. Biologically she is a boy but she identifies as a girl and she wants to be called Melissa.
The reason this critically acclaimed novel for middle grade readers has attracted some criticism and been challenged multiple times since it’s relatively recent release is that the main character, George, is transgendered.
George is a surprisingly innocuous book for something that was bound to court controversy from the very beginning.
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