Melissa, previously published as George until April 2022, is a children's novel about a young transgendergirl written by American author Alex Gino.[1][2] The novel tells the story of Melissa, a fourth-grade girl who is struggling to be herself to the rest of the world. The rest of the world sees Melissa as George, a boy.[3] Melissa uses the class play, Charlotte's Web, to show her mom that she is a girl by switching roles with her best friend, and playing the part of Charlotte. Scholastic first published the novel on August 25, 2015, and it has had a mixed reaction because of its LGBT+ content.[4][5] In 2021, Gino retitled the novel Melissa.
The novel has received positive feedback from sources such as The New York Times and the National Public Radio for its inclusion of transgender experiences.[6] However, the book has remained controversial to some parents and teachers, leading it to be listed on the American Library Association's list of the 10 Most Challenged Books of 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020 (topping the list in 2018, 2019, and 2020).[7] Common reasons for challenging the book include its sexual references and conflict with "traditional family structure," with some saying schools and libraries should not "put books in a child's hand that require discussion."[8] It ultimately became the fifth-most banned book between 2010 and 2020.[9]
Alex Gino wrote the novel "because it was the book [they] wanted to read" growing up.[2] Gino also wanted to write it because they noticed a lack of transgender middle-grade literature aimed for 3rd grade to 7th grade, and they hoped the book would "help transgender children feel less alone."[10] They wanted to fill this need and teach children about these issues.[11] The novel simultaneously is meant to teach non-transgender children to be tolerant of trans people and show children who are trans that there are other people like them going through similar experiences.[10]
Gino started their work on the book, then titled Girl George, in 2003 and made frequent draft revisions before publication to adjust to the changing social environment toward trans people.[10] It had an initial press run in 2015 of 50,000 copies under Scholastic, and was sent out to over 10,000 teachers and children's librarians.[12] In the future Gino wants Melissa to become "historical fiction."[3]
Plot
The novel follows Melissa, a transgender girl, whose family and the rest of the world sees as George. Melissa is in the fourth grade. Her class is about to begin their production of Charlotte's Web. Auditions are fast approaching, and the class rules are that each girl will audition for the role of Charlotte and each boy will audition for the role of Wilbur, the pig. Melissa wants to audition for the role of Charlotte. When Melissa gets called out into the hall and does her audition as Charlotte, her teacher, Ms. Udell, thinks Melissa is making a joke and tells Melissa that she cannot play the role of Charlotte, because Melissa is a boy. Since Melissa does not want to play a role other than Charlotte and Ms. Udell said that was not an option, Melissa takes a role in the stage crew. Meanwhile, at home, Melissa's mom finds her secret collection of female magazines. Melissa's mother views her actions as childish and says that she does not want to see Melissa wearing girl clothing, shoes, or going in her room at all. Back at school, Melissa is still upset with Ms. Udell's reaction to her audition. In addition, she feels distant from her friend Kelly because Kelly got the role of Charlotte. However, as the classes' efforts to prepare for the upcoming production increased, Melissa finds a way to become the "Charlotte" of the stage crew by playing a supportive role for her friend. Inspired by Charlotte's courage, she gains the confidence to tell Kelly that she is a girl. After processing this news, Kelly is supportive of her best friend Melissa, and her efforts to tell the world she is a girl. One afternoon, as the stage crew is working on the set, Jeff, the class bully, says that if he met a talking spider he would step on it. Melissa feels the instinct to protect Charlotte and paints "SOME JERK" on a piece of paper and drops it on Jeff's back, painting his sweatshirt with the words. After Jeff sees the damage, he punches Melissa to punish her for ruining his favorite sweatshirt, causing her to vomit on him. As a result of the fight, both Melissa and Jeff are in trouble with their teachers. However, in the process of getting punished, Melissa discovers that the principal is sympathetic to transgender people.
Later in the evening, when Melissa's mom questions her about the magazines, Melissa reveals to her mom that she is a girl. Her mom disregards her feelings, crushing Melissa in the process. On the other hand, when Melissa tells her brother Scott that she is a girl, he thinks her feelings match her behavior, and he offers his help and understanding to her. The night before the performance, Kelly and Melissa devise a plan for Melissa to be Charlotte in the play, which will help show the world that she is a girl. Kelly will perform in the morning, and Melissa will perform at the evening show. Melissa does an excellent job performing as Charlotte and receives many compliments for her performance from classmates and the principal. Her mom is initially shocked at this performance but the performance later helps her become a more supportive and understanding mom to Melissa.
After the excitement of the performance, Melissa feels more comfortable with herself. When Kelly invites her to spend the day with her uncle at the zoo, Melissa takes this opportunity to show herself as she chooses because she will be surrounded by people who do not already know her as George. Dressed in Kelly's clothing, she and Kelly happily enjoy the day at the zoo.[3]
Genre
Melissa falls under several genres of literature. The intended reader is eight to twelve years old.[13] It is a fictional novel[14] that falls under the genres of children and LGBTQ+ literature.[15] This novel contributes to the small but growing repertoire of middle-grade literature about gender and sexual identity.[2]
Publication
Gino started their work on the book in 2003, and the novel underwent several drafts before its August 2015 release.[16] Gino worked closely with editors Jean Marie Stine and with David Levithan from Scholastic Corporation.[17] One of the major edits to Gino's work was the title; the original title was Girl George (a reference to Boy George), but Scholastic changed it to George during the editing process.[18] Before the commercial release, Scholastic sent over 10,000 copies to teachers in the United States which received mixed, but largely positive feedback.[2] The teachers and librarians who opposed the novel argued that children are too young to be discussing these issues.[2] However, the positive feedback convinced Scholastic to increase the first printing order from 35,000 to 50,000.[2]
Scholastic Press and Scholastic UK prints copies in both hardcover and softcover.[19] Translated copies can be found in English, Spanish, French, Catalan, Chinese Complex, Danish, Dutch, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Swedish and Vietnamese.[16]Jamie Clayton, a transgender actress, narrated the audio book.[20][21] Gino felt it was important to have "trans voices to telling trans stories" to make the story feel genuine.[20]
In 2021, Gino and Scholastic changed the title of the novel from George to Melissa, saying they shouldn't have titled it with a name that "the main character does not like or want to use for herself".[22] Gino initially suggested Melissa's Story as the new title of the novel, with Scholastic then choosing to shorten it to Melissa.[23] Scholastic plans to start publishing an edition of the novel bearing the new title in April 2022 in the United States.[22]
Reception
Melissa has been received with mixed reactions since its publication.[24] While the book has been routinely challenged, it has also received various awards and praise for its content.[25]
The School Library Journal, in a starred review, wrote that Melissa is "a required purchase" for readers interested in middle-grade literature.[26] In The New York Times, children's author Tim Federle called Melissa a "timely, touching novel" with a unique protagonist.[27] Mel Morrow said that Melissa was a "life-saving book" in a Lambda Literary review.[28] In an NPR interview, transgender studies doctoral student J. Wallace Skelton praised the book's portrayal of bullying and its narrative "about a young person who is very much trying to become who they are," but criticized the book's original title of George, arguing that it does not support Melissa's true identity.[29]
Censorship in the United States
Melissa appeared on the American Library Association's Top Ten Most Challenged Book list every year between 2016 and 2020.[30] It was the fifth-most banned book between 2010 and 2020.[31] The book has been challenged for various reasons, including its portrayal of a transgender child; sexual themes that were "not appropriate at elementary levels," such as mentions of "dirty magazines" and pornography and descriptions of male anatomy; conflicts with religious viewpoints and "traditional family structure"; and supposedly encouraging children to "clear browser history and change their bodies using hormones".[32][33]
In 2017, a library supervisor for the Wichita, Kansas public school system decided not to automatically include Melissa on a list of books sent to district libraries, citing its sexual references and allegedly age-inappropriate language. Wichita school libraries could not use system funds to purchase the novel, but would instead need to rely on building funds or interlibrary loans to provide access. In response, Gino organized a Twitter fundraising campaign to buy enough copies of Melissa for each of the district's 57 elementary and K-8 school libraries.[34][35]
In April 2018, the Tigard-Tualatin School District in King City, Oregon considered requiring parents to sign a permission slip before letting elementary students check out Melissa. Some parents protested the idea as censorship, while others praised it for keeping parents informed.[36][37]
Melissa was selected as a text for students in grades 3–5 in the 2018 Oregon Battle of the Books reading competition. Officials from two Oregon school districts withdrew their students from the competition as a result, believing the book was "developmentally inappropriate" due to references to pornography and other content. Gino claimed that these objections were "a decoy" for disapproval of the book's transgender themes.[33][38]
Analysis
Allyship is a major theme in Melissa.[39] Gino said in an interview at an Ann Arbor bookstore that they wrote Melissa to guide family, friends, teachers and students alike in better sympathizing with the experiences of transgender children.[40] In their 2019 article in the Journal of Children's Literature, Jill M. Hermann-Wilmarth and Caitlin L. Ryan contended that the novel instructs readers on how to be better allies for their transgender friends and peers through its focus on Melissa's interactions with other characters and the impact they have on her.[40] How Melissa is either hurt or helped by these interactions in her coming-out process can help readers create safe spaces for transgender people to express their identities in real life.[40] A book on the inclusion of queer adolescent literature in English Language Arts classes suggests the use of Melissa in middle-level ELA classrooms as a means of promoting both allyship and critical discussion about how to remedy difference among their students.[39]
Gender roles and how they define human interaction are also main themes in Melissa.[40] Hermann-Wilmarth and Ryan wrote that many of Melissa's interactions with both her peers and superiors exemplify the struggle of transgender children to challenge the gender binary.[40] When Melissa tells Mrs. Udell, for example, that she wants to play Charlotte in the school play, Mrs. Udell does not take her seriously and even "scowls" at the idea, a response that demonstrates her strong discomfort with such a forward challenge of gender roles.[40] Kelly and Scott, Melissa's best friend and brother, respectively, also have difficulty coming to terms with Melissa's identity as a female, while other kids at school bully her for her girlishness.[40] She challenges the cisnormative expectations of these characters, resulting in either pain and violence, as in the case of her bullies, or eventual acceptance and growth in the case of her family members and close friends.[40] By providing these various examples of how gender expectations govern different interactions and relationships between characters, Melissa pushes its cisgender readers to consider what it means to be excluded from binary gender roles and how to rid themselves of strict gender expectations.[40]
In a 2015 article in The Conversation, PhD candidate in Children's Literature Rebecca Cierazek discussed how Melissa provides transgender children with a relatable narrative.[41] The dichotomy between who Melissa believes herself to be and who others take her as is representative of the identity struggle many transgender kids face that often goes unrecognized in children's literature.[41] Cierazek suggested that by informing parents and kids about what it means to be transgender, Melissa can help eliminate discrimination of LGBTQ children that often stems from fear and ignorance.[41]
Mel Morrow in the Lambia Literary review writes about Alex Gino's Melissa. Morrow writes, the problems that transgender children face both privately and publicly are addressed head-on by Alex Gino in George. During Melissa's transition period, Gino demonstrates these difficulties through Melissa's interaction with various characters.[13] Through these interactions, Gino demonstrates diverse responses to Melissa's transition while gradually leading the characters to accept Melissa's transition.[13]
Morrow believes that the intended reader for Melissa is eight to twelve years old. This age range intelligently removes "sexuality from the identity-formation equation." Melissa breaks the stigma that her family and readers may hold that gender expression is correlated with sexuality.[13]
Alex Sanchez is a Mexican American author of award-winning novels for teens and adults. His first novel, Rainbow Boys (2001), was selected by the American Library Association (ALA), as a Best Book for Young Adults. Subsequent books have won additional awards, including the Lambda Literary Award. Although Sanchez's novels are widely accepted in thousands of school and public libraries in America, they have faced a handful of challenges and efforts to ban them. In Webster, New York, removal of Rainbow Boys from the 2006 summer reading list was met by a counter-protest from students, parents, librarians, and community members resulting in the book being placed on the 2007 summer reading list.
Jennifer Donnelly is an American writer best known for the young adult historical novel A Northern Light.
Sharon Mills Draper is an American children's writer, professional educator, and the 1997 National Teacher of the Year. She is a two-time winner of the Coretta Scott King Award for books about the young and adolescent African-American experience. She is known for her Hazelwood and Jericho series, Copper Sun,Double Dutch, Out of My Mind and Romiette and Julio.
Melissa de la Cruz is a Filipina-American writer known for young adult fiction. Her young-adult series include Au Pairs, the Blue Bloods, and The Beauchamp Family.
Smile is an autobiographical graphic novel written by Raina Telgemeier. It was published in February 2010 by Graphix, an imprint of Scholastic Inc. The novel provides an account of the author's life, characterized by dental procedures and struggles with fitting in, from sixth grade to high school. The book originated as a webcomic, which was serialized on Girlamatic. It is most appropriate for readers between fourth and sixth grade. Smile has had a pedagogical impact, and reviews have been written on this novel.
Mariko Tamaki is a Canadian artist and writer. She is known for her graphic novels Skim, Emiko Superstar, and This One Summer, and for several prose works of fiction and non-fiction. In 2016 she began writing for both Marvel and DC Comics. She has twice been named a runner-up for the Michael L. Printz Award.
Kirstin Cronn-Mills is an American author of children's books including the Minnesota Book Award finalist The Sky Always Hears Me And the Hills Don't Mind (2009) and Beautiful Music for Ugly Children (2012) which was a Stonewall Book Award winner and a Lambda Literary Award finalist. Her third novel, Original Fake (2016), was a Minnesota Book Award finalist in 2017, along with her third nonfiction volume for high school libraries, LGBTQ+ Athletes Claim the Field. Her fourth novel, Wreck, will be published in 2019.
Casey Plett is a Canadian writer, best known for her novel Little Fish, her Lambda Literary Award winning short story collection, A Safe Girl to Love, and her Giller Prize-nominated short story collection, A Dream of a Woman. Plett is a transgender woman, and she often centers this experience in her writing.
Alex Gino is a genderqueer American children's book writer. Gino's debut book, Melissa, was the winner of the 2016 Stonewall Book Award and the 2016 Lambda Literary Award in the category of LGBT Children's/Young Adult.
Kelly Barnhill is an American author of children's literature, fantasy, and science fiction. Her novel The Girl Who Drank the Moon was awarded the 2017 Newbery Medal. Kirkus Reviews named When Women Were Dragons one of the best science fiction and fantasy books of 2022.
I Am J is a young adult novel written by Cris Beam. It tells the story of 17-year-old transgender student J, who is transitioning during his senior year in high school in New York City, and struggles to find acceptance with his peers and his parents. Published in 2011 by Little, Brown, I Am J was a finalist for the 2012 Lambda Literary Award, in the Transgender Fiction category.
Meredith Russo is an American young adult author from Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Elizabeth Acevedo is an American poet and author. In September 2022, the Poetry Foundation named her the year's Young People's Poet Laureate.
Kacen Callender is a Saint Thomian author of children's fiction and fantasy, best known for their Stonewall Book Award and Lambda Literary Award—winning middle grade debut Hurricane Child (2018). Their fantasy novel, Queen of the Conquered, is the 2020 winner of the World Fantasy Award, and King and the Dragonflies won the 2020 National Book Award for Young People's Literature and the 2021 Lambda Literary Award for Children's and Young Adult Literature.
Oregon Battle of the Books (OBOB) is a trivia-style reading competition where students grades 3 to 12 compete against one another by answering a series of questions based upon a list of books they are given at the beginning of the year. The list is around 15 books long and questions will be asked of any of the books for that age division in Jeopardy! style.
Transgender literature is a collective term used to designate the literary production that addresses, has been written by or portrays people of diverse gender identity.
Hurricane Child is a children's novel by Kacen Callender. The book was published in March 2018 by Scholastic Press. The book is set in Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, and tells the story of Caroline Murphy, who discovers her love for another girl.
Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars: A Dangerous Trans Girl's Confabulous Memoir is a 2016 Canadian book by Kai Cheng Thom. A surrealist novel, it follows an unnamed transgender woman protagonist who leaves home at a young age to live on the Street of Miracles—where various sex work takes place—with other "femmes". After one of them is killed, others form a gang and begin to attack men on the street.
Leah Johnson is an American writer. Her debut novel You Should See Me in a Crown (2020) received critical acclaim, including a Stonewall Book Award Honor. She is the author of Rise to the Sun (2021) and Ellie Engle Saves Herself! (2023).
1 2 Hayn, Judith (2018). "Trans*Forming the Middle-Level English Language Arts Classroom: Reading George to Promote Ally-Ship". In Greathouse, P.; Eisenbach, B.; Kaywell, J. F. (eds.). Queer Adolescent Literature as a Complement to the English Language Arts Curriculum. London: Rowman & Littlefield. pp.197–209.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
