Gino is non-binary themself and seems to remember exactly what it felt like to be a child whose gender didn’t fit social norms. I cried all the way through it-and it still makes me cry. That book opened me to long-forgotten feelings and embodied sensations from my own middle-grade years. I was 50 before I saw the emotional landscape of my own childhood represented in fiction, encountering it in Alex Gino’s 2015 middle-grade novel, Melissa’s Story (published as George). I’m a trans woman and non-binary femme, and when I was young, there were no books like these. I do have personal stake in this emerging literature. In the past two years, however, an explosion of new (and excellent) work has appeared! As someone who has been teaching and researching young people’s literatures for some time, it has been extraordinary to see this new body of children’s and YA fiction appearing practically before my eyes. I have wanted to teach a course like this for a long time, but even two years ago it would have been hard to develop an adequate reading list. It’s a course in children’s and young adult (YA) fiction written by transgender and non-binary (trans/nb) writers. I am so excited about a course I’ll be teaching at UBC starting in January, and I hope that, after reading this article, you’ll be excited too. By Mary Ann Saunders (she/her), lecturer, UBC’s School of Journalism, Writing, and Media
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