Melissa and Rick
Melissa is a 10-year-old boy christened George who knows she’s really a girl. And the book describes how she manages to tell her best friend this, as well as her older brother and mother. It all hinges around a school play of Charlotte’s Web , in which Melissa wants to play Charlotte but gets turned down because, according to her teacher, a boy can’t possibly play a female spider. The language is straightforward and simple. The play plot could turn up in any book for young people, with the message that they should ‘just be themselves’. But in this case, being themselves means being acknowledged as a transgender girl. And it’s all done so simply and delicately. Something that Rick doesn’t quite pull off so well. Rick is a minor character in Melissa , one of a duo of jerks who delight in bullying her. But in this book, he comes to realize how much of a jerk his buddy Jeff is, and to become friends with Melissa, and with his somewhat distant grandfather, a man with a secret the boo
