English Language and Literature Commons^™

"And All Were Welcome": An Analysis Of The Transgender Child In Contemporary Picture Books, Isaac Prestwich

Pomona Senior Theses

This paper constitutes an interrogation of children’s picture books that feature trans and gender non-conforming child protagonists. In these books, the audience, presumed to be a child, whose experience of the narrative is mediated through the adult or older figure reading the picture book, is brought to empathize and identify with the book’s characters, whether they be the protagonist themselves, or those auxiliary figures who surround the main character. My goal is to identify consistent themes across the genre, as well as within the field of critical childhood studies, particularly as they pertain to the rhetorical value of the Child, …