Laurie Frankel: This is how it always is (2017)
[large print edition] /, 609 pages
English language
Published June 24, 2017
This is how a family keeps a secret... and how that secret ends up keeping them. This is how a family lives happily ever after... until happily ever after becomes complicated. This is how children change... and then change the world. When Rosie and Penn and their four boys welcome the newest member of their family, no one is surprised it's another baby boy. At least their large, loving, chaotic family knows what to expect. But Claude is not like his brothers. One day he puts on a dress and refuses to take it off. He wants to bring a purse to kindergarten. He wants hair long enough to sit on. When he grows up, Claude says, he wants to be a girl. Rosie and Penn aren't panicked at first. Kids go through phases, after all, and make-believe is fun. But soon the entire family is keeping Claude's secret. Until …
This is how a family keeps a secret... and how that secret ends up keeping them. This is how a family lives happily ever after... until happily ever after becomes complicated. This is how children change... and then change the world. When Rosie and Penn and their four boys welcome the newest member of their family, no one is surprised it's another baby boy. At least their large, loving, chaotic family knows what to expect. But Claude is not like his brothers. One day he puts on a dress and refuses to take it off. He wants to bring a purse to kindergarten. He wants hair long enough to sit on. When he grows up, Claude says, he wants to be a girl. Rosie and Penn aren't panicked at first. Kids go through phases, after all, and make-believe is fun. But soon the entire family is keeping Claude's secret. Until one day it explodes.
This was a nuanced, and at times poetic, look at the challenges of having, and being, a trans kid. It was also a kind of fairy tale. I particularly liked the dialogue, which had the snappiness of 1940s films.
