This Is How It Always Is
Author: Laurie Frankel
Pages: 336
This story is about a family with five children. After having 4 children - all boys - Penn and Rosie decide they want one more. Secretly hoping for a girl, Rosie tries a lot of superstitious things to make it so. In the end, Claude - their 5th boy - is born.
As Claude grows, it becomes clear that he isn't comfortable in his body. He frequently asks to wear dresses, and play with dolls, and be a princess. At first the family believes that he is just exploring because he has 4 brothers who like nothing but trucks and tumbling. But when he parents ask Claude what he wants to be when he grows up - he tells them he wants to be a girl.
By the time Claude is ready for Kindergarten, he has changed his name to Poppy and goes to school every day as a girl. Then one fated playdate causes the whole family to decide they are in the wrong place to raise a little girl who used to be a boy. They pick up their family and move to Seattle to start over where no one knows that Poppy used to be Claude.
Years pass until one day the family secret is revealed, and the whole family is upended. Now they need to decide if keeping Poppy's secret was the best decision they made for her.
This was a good book. I thought it was well written and a fast read. The author's small little quips throughout the dialog made a heavy subject a little lighter. The story is full of valuable lessons, and ways that a family deals with a very tough situation. Transgender children still struggle in school and in life. It talks of loving our children no matter what and how we as parents need to love and support our children through all their difficult choices.
Stars: 4 1/2
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