This story goes along on a neighborhood walk with Jamie and his Great Grandmother, whom he affectionately calls Bubbie. While walking, the two of them interact with different people, and often times Bubbie mistakenly refers to people by the wrong gender. A couple of times Bubbie does it in a way that many of us probably have–seeing someone only from the back and assuming their gender based on their hairstyle. Once she uses the wrong pronoun for someone who has told her what their pronoun they prefer. However, I love the way that Jamie gently corrects Bubbie each time, and by the time their walk ends back at Jamie’s, Jamie’s mother is there to help explain how Bubbie can avoid making that mistake in the future.
I found this book to be a quick read (its intended audience is children aged 4-8), and very clear in what the author is trying to get the reader to understand. I fell in love with Jamie right away, and reading this book made me want to read Afsaneh Moradian’s first book about Jamie, titled Jamie is Jamie.
Something that Moradian did for the adults reading this story was put an awesome “Tips for Teachers, Parents, and Caregivers” at the end of the book, which I found to be very helpful, and even includes other resources you can go to if you have more questions or want to discuss pronoun usage further with young readers.
You can learn more about author Afsaneh Moradian and her work at her website: http://www.afsanehmoradian.com/.
Raising Readers... 