Essay Questions

What does the author immediately accomplish in the novel’s opening paragraph through the juxtaposition of proper names and pronouns?

The very first word of the story is “George” who is presented as a latchkey kid coming home from school to enter an empty house. By the third sentence, George is being referred to with the pronoun “she.” The expectations of such a name, of course, is that George would be a boy and so the appropriate pronoun reference would be “he.” Any expectations that that this is just a typo in the printing process is immediately put to rest as George continues to be referred to using feminine pronounces. The author is playing upon gender convention and expectations here. A certain dramatic tension is created out of the uncertainty: if not a typo, then George could certainly be shortened version of Georgette or Georgina.

And it is precisely that possibility which really raises the stakes for those who explanation might naturally drift in that direction. George can be a girl’s nickname, but it is not—not yet, anyway—one of those predominantly male names that have just begun to lose their gender solidity. The effect of uncertainty and the questions raised by the disconnect between name and pronoun reference become a reflection of the way that trans people feel when addressed by a pronoun at odds with their gender identity.

What does the age divergence in how other characters respond to George’s insistence that she is a girl subtly imply about the power of activism for social change?

Ms. Udell is immediately antagonistic toward the idea of George playing Charlotte in the play. This resistance is based entirely upon traditional views of gender conventions: boys simply don’t play girl parts in school co-ed school productions. Although the situation is obviously more complicated in the case of George’s mother, she does respond to George’s gender issues in ways that completely align with generational expectations. On the other hand, both Kelly and Scott react to the reality of Melissa in ways showing an acceptance completely out-of-sync with the older generation. Doubtlessly, this is due in some part to the fact that they represent the first generation in which social activism of the past succeeded in bringing transgender issues into the mainstream. Admittedly, Jeff and Rick react more in line with the older generation despite being the same age—roughly—as Kelly and Scott. This has more to do with being jerks fundamentally, however, than with any generational influence. Social activism designed to normalize behavior too long misinterpreted as deviant or bizarre is revealed to be effective.

From 2018 through 2020, George was the number one most challenged book in the country, according to the American Library Association. Why?

Each year, the American Library Association compiles a list of the ten books that were most often targeted for various attempts at censorship by individuals and organizations looking to have books removed from school curricula, libraries, university materials, and other established forms of public consumption of reading material. George made those top ten lists every year between 2016 and 2020. Combined with its list-topping years, it wound up becoming the fifth most banned book in the United States in the second decade of the 21st century. Why? Well, according to the various entities actually seeking to have the novel removed from publicly funded entities, the public desperately needed to be protected from the story told in George because:

it conflicted with community values;

school libraries should not be encouraged to “put books in a child’s hand that require discussion”;

it encourages young children to “clear browser history and change their bodies using hormones”;

and, in the most honest assessment given, “because it includes a transgender child.”