10,000 Dresses
By Marcus Ewert, Illustrated by Rex Ray
Seven Stories Press, 32 pp.
Poor Bailey. She dreams each night of the fabulous dresses she'll design. Ten thousand in all, they march up a staircase and reveal themselves to her one by one.
There's a crystal dress, whose stones clink softly together. And a flower dress, which smells so sweet. But when Bailey wakes and solicits help from her family in making her fashion dreams come true, she's in for a shock. "You're a boy!" they all tell her. "Boys don't wear dresses!"
Thus begins Marcus Ewert's tale of a little girl who has been given the wrong body—and what's worse, the wrong family. If you've any compassion at all for the difficulties faced by gender-variant children, your heart will break as Bailey faces rejection after rejection from the people who should love and accept her the most.
Instead they ignore, belittle, and even threaten to hurt her if she won't drop the nonsense about being a girl. It would be nice if this scenario existed only in the pages of a slim children's book; unfortunately, I have a sinking feeling that it's played out in family rooms, churches and classrooms every single day to dozens if not hundreds of little Baileys.
I'm happy to report that Bailey's tale is not without a happy ending. Eventually she does find a degree of understanding as well as the ability to craft her dresses. Not all Baileys are so lucky, and that's where a book like Ewert's can be the most useful.
Do you know of a Bailey among your own circle of acquaintances? A friend's child, a cousin, a student? Perhaps you're the confidant of someone parenting a gender-variant child. Perhaps there's such a child in your own family. A copy of this book and some understanding listening could be the start toward easing the inevitable difficulties faced by these families. 10,000 Dresses belongs on the shelf of every primary school library; in fact I plan to ask my children's school if they'll carry it.
Rex Ray's illustrations make the dresses imagined by Bailey shine. I'd personally love to have an outfit made of mirrors which would (as Bailey explains) "show us OURSELVES," because isn't that what every good dress does?
I was less fond of the expressions shown on Bailey's and other character's faces. The range here is really limited, and while I know the book is aimed at little ones who are just figuring out the difference between a happy face and a sad face, I wish the expressions could have been a little more mobile.
My only other complaint about 10,000 Dresses is that it's simply too short. I found myself wanting to know a bit more about the acceptance Bailey finds and how her family responds to this new influence. I wanted the book to suggest that her family eventually comes around with at least some change of heart and support toward their child.
That would be an unabashedly happy ending and one that I'd very much like to see encouraged.
Additional Reading
Print
Delicious
Digg
StumbleUpon
Reddit
Google
Yahoo
