Book Nook - North of Tomboy

 North of Tomboy by Julie A. Swanson is based on the author’s own experience growing up in rural Leelanau Peninsula, Michigan in the 1970s and shows how rewarding being yourself, entire, can be.

 

 

When shy fourth-grader Jess Jezowski receives yet another girly baby doll for Christmas, she’s decided that she’s had enough. She turns it into the boy she’s always wanted to be – brave, funny Mickey – and uses it to express herself.

 

But over time Mickey becomes like an alter ego that drowns out Jess’s real voice and the secret escapes her family, forcing her to realize that by using Mickey as a crutch, she isn’t allowing herself to let the boy part of her have a big enough presence in the world. She’ll have to stop hiding behind Mickey and get the people in her life to see her for who she truly is.

I could see so much of my younger kid in the plot of this story. As someone who has never fit into the traditional mold of girl - or boy - K has had to forge a unique path in the world and would have loved a book like this earlier in life.

You can learn more in this interview.

How did your background shape this story? 

North of Tomboy is semi-autobiographical so although it's fiction and even things that really happened have been fictionalized, my background shaped the story to a great extent. The main character Jess is basically gender-creative me as a kid; she's the same age I was when I got the doll I turned into a bigger-than-life character who became like another member of the family. I named him Mickey just as Jess does. Jess's discomfort with being a girl, how she feels about things, it's exactly how I felt. The story's set where I grew up. I had the same number of siblings Jess does, cousins who lived next door. My family was Catholic; we'd moved to Michigan from Milwaukee... It's easier to say how the story is different from my real childhood: 

1.) Jess was born the year before I was; to make historic events enhance my plot, I made Jess turn ten in 1973, not 1974. 

2.) I got Mickey for Christmas, but I'd asked for a doll; I knew if I didn't pick one out, my mom would, and that I probably wouldn't like it because it wouldn't have as much "boy" potential. You see, I'd had a boy doll before Mickey (I didn't make him speak, though), but I left him out in my treehouse one night, and a chipmunk took a bite out of his cheek--the teeth marks showed clearly. My mom didn't like how the Band-Aids I covered the bite with kept getting the doll's cheek dirty and gummy with stuff sticking to the adhesive, so she wanted me to get rid of him and get a new doll. I looked through the Sears Wish Book and JC Penney Christmas catalogue, found a doll that looked like it could be turned into a boy, and asked for it.

3.) It took me a lot longer to feel like I should stop being Mickey than it takes Jess; she starts feeling that way in seven- or eight-months’ time, but I "was" Mickey around my family until an embarrassingly old age (22). I can still slip into being him around my mom and sister.

4.) I made Jess's brothers be more sexist and more antagonistic toward Mickey than my own brothers were. My brothers just sort of ignored Mickey.

5.) Likewise, Jess's school friends, teachers, and neighbors have been fictionalized or are fictional characters; they're either combinations of people, or partly or entirely made up from my imagination. 

6.) I was not as brave a kid as Jess was. 

Why is it important for parents and caregivers to let kids express themselves, even if it isn't the way they may have expected? 

Ideally we want our kids to feel unconditionally loved. Expectations can feel like conditional love. Kids shouldn't be afraid to voice what they're thinking and feeling, to express their preferences--and they need to sense that those things are being heard, not ignored. For example, every time my mom dressed me or did my hair as a child, I could tell what she hoped for in a daughter, in terms of appearance, and very early on it was clear to me that I was not that, could not happily be that, that I was a disappointment to her in that way. She expected a little girl who would be happy to wear dresses and let her do what she wanted with my hair; I wanted to look like my brothers. I longed for short hair and clothes like theirs, couldn't stand dresses, skirts, tights, things in my long hair, any feminine style or detail to my clothes. My mom and I fought a lot over clothes and hair. When you're a kid with parent(s) who keep trying to make you look a certain way or do a certain thing despite your repeated objections to it, you don't feel accepted for who you are, for what you like. You feel like they want you to be someone other than who you are. To my mom's credit, she did eventually cave when I was eleven, letting me get a haircut and dress more the way I wanted, but it was obvious she didn't like my short hair or clothing choices, and at times she still insisted I dress up in girly things. I knew she loved me, but I felt great pressure to look the way she wanted me to (she was almost as determined as I was), and I bristled at that, got very angry at times. When I became a parent, I didn't want to fight with my kids over hair and clothes, so I was very intentional about letting them have their hair how they wanted it, letting them wear the kind of clothes they liked. I let my daughter get her ears pierced at a younger age than I had in mind. I winced through some of their fashion statements... I tried not to sweat the small stuff and to choose my battles. That was fairly easy to do, until they became teenagers. Then it got a lot harder! (Although I never fought over hair and clothes with my kids like my mom and I did.) You can't make your kids do or say what you want them to. And the older they get, the less any of it is under your control. So at that point, you largely have to let go, let them be who they are and do what they're going to do and make their mistakes (or not), and accept them for who they turn out to be. Sometimes that's what you would've predicted--even what you wanted or expected--but, for many of us, there are huge surprises, and you just have to love and accept them no matter what.

How can families help encourage kids to forge their own unique identity? 

I would say follow their lead. Ask questions. Kids don't always talk about what's bothering them, but their body language speaks louder than words. Be observant. Talk to them about what they like, what they want to be, how they feel. Ask why; be curious rather than judgmental. If something makes them happy, or sad or uncomfortable or frustrated, notice that. Whenever you can, give them some choice, some personal power. Let them feel like they have some agency, some say in who they are, how they present themselves. Compromise. Show that you care about what they think, their preferences. A kid whose desires are constantly overlooked can feel like "Do I even matter? Does what I like even count for anything?" Let them know it's OK if they're different than the other kids they see around them in their life. Don't pressure them to conform if you can see it's causing them distress. I wrote a blog post a few years ago that I think addresses this from the standpoint of gender really well, but it's long so I'll just include the link to it: https://julieaswanson.wordpress.com/2021/09/12/seeing-a-child-with-gender-dysphoria/

 

Julie Swanson grew up in Michigan's "Little Finger," the Leelanau Peninsula, where many of her stories are set, but has lived in Wisconsin, Iowa, New Hampshire, California, and Virginia. For the past twenty-five years she's lived in Charlottesville, VA. Julie writes middle grade and young adult novels and enjoys sports, the outdoors, "making things" (almost any type of art or craft, woodworking), reading, writing, eating, planting trees, and spending time with family.