Morris Micklewhite and the Tangerine Dress

Baldacchino debuts with a sensitive story that joins books like My Princess Boy and Jacob’s New Dress on a growing shelf of titles that offer support and understanding to gender-nonconforming boys. Baldacchino’s redheaded hero loves wearing the tangerine dress in his classroom’s dress-up center: “It reminds him of tigers, the sun and his mother’s hair.” A significant part of the book’s strength lies in the author’s portrait of Morris as a boy with much more to him than what he wears: Morris likes painting, puzzles, running around outside, and pretending to be an astronaut—the dress is just one of many things he enjoys. His classmates aren’t so accepting, and Baldacchino doesn’t sugarcoat the teasing and isolation Morris endures. Working in charcoal, watercolor, and other media, Malenfant (Once Upon a Balloon) showcases Morris’s full emotional spectrum: the joy the dress brings him, the hurt his peers’ taunts inflict, the refuge he finds at home with his quietly supportive mother, and the satisfaction that accompanies his success in helping two classmates understand that “it didn’t matter if astronauts wore dresses or not.” Ages 4–7. (May)