North of Tomboy is a moving and poetic middle grade novel set in 1973 that follows nine-year-old Jess Jezowski, a shy fourth grader who feels more boy than girl but struggles to make others see that truth. After transforming a Christmas doll into “Mickey,” the boy she longs to be, Jess begins to explore identity, faith, family, and history in a voice that is heartfelt, symbolic, and deeply authentic.

The writing is lyrical and layered, with chapter titles and accompanying illustrations that make the story immersive. Jess’s reflections on how God made her out of clay, using colors to symbolize different parts of her, and comparing the boy inside her to a vampire, are some of the most memorable passages I’ve read in a middle grade book. The mix of personal symbolism, religion, sports, and cultural context of the early 1970s (including Watergate and Nixon) creates a rich and unique backdrop. As someone who went to college in Michigan and has visited Mackinac Island, I especially connected to the sense of place. Jess is a likable and relatable character, while her parents, especially her frustrated father, are written with such subtlety that makes them feel both real and complicated.

✔️ Who might enjoy this book:
* Readers who appreciate poetic, introspective middle grade fiction
* Fans of authors like Kacen Callender, Kyle Lukoff, or Lin Thompson
* Parents looking for thoughtful books to read with their children that spark discussion about identity, family, and faith
* Mature middle readers who enjoy books with historical settings, sports references, and layered symbolism
* Readers who connect with stories about religion, self-expression, and resilience

This is not necessarily a book for reluctant readers because the pacing and length may be challenging. It’s a perfect fit for open-minded families, mature middle graders, or classrooms and book clubs that want to dive into identity and history together. I love that this publisher continues to bring forward voices we all can learn from, and Jess’s story is one I’m glad to have read. I definitely recommend it.

This was a sweet and hopeful story about a child's struggle with being "mostly boy" (in the character's own words) while the world treats him as a girl. The main character, Jess, who expresses himself through a doll named Mickey through most of plot, uses this doll not only to share his gender identity subtly to his family in a conservative area in the 1970s, but also to find his voice after years of repressing his thoughts and feelings to avoid "sin." There are a lot of important themes addressed in this book in addition to Jess's own trans/genderqueer identity (it's never quite identified which, which I think is realistic for the age of the character and the time period), such as Jess's struggle with religious guilt and religion being at odds with his own feelings, Jess's father's verbal and emotional abuse of the family, the second wave feminist movement in the 1970s, and attitudes about gender in the 1970s which still persist to this day,

The plot felt a bit meandering at times, and the slow pace and long page count ultimately hurt the book more than helped. The themes were not always explored as deeply as I would have liked and felt disjointed from each other throughout the book. The book's resolution felt short and unsatisfying and didn't quite knit all these themes together cohesively, either. However, there was a lot to love about the book. The trans/genderqueer representation in a historical title was wonderful to see, and the book's writing style felt like it reflected the 1970's well without coming across as dated. The characters were engaging and likeable, the humor fun, and the themes and plotline compelling. Ultimately, I would recommend this book as is though it feels like it needs more editing. Additionally, the illustrations are a bit rough-- some of them look uncanny due to an overuse of the blend tool.

Thank you to Netgalley for the free arc!

The author does a good job of creating a slice of life narrative. It contains many well-drawn scenes that happen to the main character throughout a year of her life in 1973 when she is nine years old. These scenes are vivid and easy to imagine. Jess would rather be a boy than a girl-- enjoying playing out outside, boys' clothes and activities-- more than the girls' actvities and clothes everyone expects of her. When she is given yet another doll as a present, Jess cuts the doll's hair and creates clothes to create a boy persona for the doll. Pretty soon, Jess gives the doll a persona, a voice, and through this doll can express things to her family that she is afraid to on. her own. Spunky and sassy with a quick sense of humor, this persona of Mick brings a lot of humor and fun to the family. After awhile, Jess realizes that she wishes that she could use her own voice and be as bold as Mick. The rest of the book explores how she goes about doing this. Set in the backdrop of the 1970s, there is much about gender roles in her family that is explored as well as in culture such as the Billy Jean King and Bobby Riggs tennis match (The Battle of the Sexes).

It is really hard to believe that this is being marketed as. a a middle grade book. I don't think that kids are going to stay with this book as it is slow paced and set in a time period they are probably not too familiar with, For adults it is a slow read so I don't think kids will gravitate towards it.

This book was an interesting look at the historical side of gender presentation. Jess is a girl who feels 'more boy than girl.' She believes that if people could only see that she is mostly a boy and not defined by the 'one thing that supposedly makes her a girl', they could see the real her.

In acting out her gender questions, she changes a girly doll that her mother tried to foist upon her into a boy doll. This doll becomes a way for Jess to express some of her views that she doesn't feel comfortable expressing as a girl.

Through the doll, Mickey, she is able to be brash and bold. Talking back when things don't seem fair and standing up for herself and her family. Jess worries whether she is spending too much time as Mickey when people at her school almost find out about her using the doll to talk.

Through the story, Jess finally finds comfort and expresses her opinions more confidently as herself and not through Mickey. I was surprised that this author wasn't trans as far as I could tell. The book is very trans-coded. I'd give it four stars just for the historical exploration of dealing with gender and some of the author's humor.

This book feels more like it's for adults and for librarians than kids at times, But it still has a lot to recommend it. It's a fast read and the themes are presented in a context that's immediately relatable to kids (parent conflicts, toys and gifts) rather than adult discourse. And modern kids' grandparents are the Watergate generation, this could be a great conversation starter!

This was a gentle portrait of growing up on the outside looking in.

The author took great care to make this accessible for a younger reader, and I enjoyed the attention it was given.

Reflective and promising.

Content Guide: No sexual content or foul language.
Some adult alcohol use, one instance of smoking tobacco, one accidental injury. Themes of gender stereotyping.

In this book, North of Tomboy, the main character, Jess, doesn’t fit with female gender stereotypes. She likes to play outside, climb trees, and play sports. She wants to be allowed to always wear pants, and cut her hair short, but is frustrated by her parents gender expectations. At first, she doesn’t know how to speak up for herself, but throughout the book she learns how to communicate her needs and be more true to herself.
I liked reading about how the world was in the 70s, and some of the historical events. I could clearly picture the settings and characters in the story. The story felt very realistic and down-to-Earth. I enjoyed learning more about why it’s important to have freedom to dress and present ourselves in an authentic way. This was an interesting book that I would recommend to kids ages 10 to 14.
Thank you to NetGalley and SparkPress for the e-arc in exchange for my honest review.
-Laurel, 12 years old.

The author's voice is lovely, and the characters engaging and well-drawn. The setting, both the physical environment and the history, feel very real. The problem I had was with the pacing. The plot is slow-moving even for an adult reader, and so I just can't recommend this for the Middle-Grade audience it's intended for - I think it would need to be half the length in order to keep a child's interest.

It took me a while to adjust to the setting and settle into the story. However about a third in I really started to want to keep on reading.

I thought the tense atmosphere created by the author to show how it feels walking on eggshells around a verbally aggressive father and husband to be spot on. I was on edge whenever he was in the story wondering what might send him off the handle next. This was very realistic and portrayed brilliantly.

I also thought that Jess's unease at being forced into a girl shaped mould she didn't fit into was dealt with well in terms of it being 1973 and inequality between men and women being so stark. At points I was so sure that Jess was going to make that leap and tell her parents she identified as a boy, as opposed to a tomboy. But she never quite reached that point. But maybe that was the point? Maybe as she is ten she is still wrestling with her feelings, especially given the time the book is set and there being much less understanding then. Maybe Jess' story is still to be told as she matures and goes through her teenage years? I felt this could have been explored more as Jess is on the cusp of being a preteen and all that that entails. Is she transgender or not? We are left to question this in the story, perhaps as Jess would be. I thought 'Micky' as a mask to hide behind for Jess was interesting and thought she might seek to present this version of herself as who she wanted to be rather than a shield to hide her true self behind.

For some middle grade readers, the pace of the story may not keep them engaged and the 1973 setting may not land as well as it does for someone reading it with adult nostalgia/experience of the time.

However, despite the misgivings above I did enjoy this book a lot and would be interested in reading what happens next with Jess as this is a story that would benefit being told.

While I appreciate the author's effort in creating a character like Jess - who doesn't feel like a girl, but doesn't know how to express it - the character didn't feel fully developed. Jess was written as more of a tomboy than a transgender boy, so I'm not sure if the author was trying to convey the impacts of sexism or the reality of dysphoria, or both. The message of the story gets lost here. Also, the use of Mickey to voice Jess' feelings in stressful situations was creative, but it was overused after awhile.

On the other hand, the book did address difficult situations - a verbally abusive father, sexism in the 70s, the tension of not fitting into an assigned role. The author touches on these issues, but never goes very deep with them. Overall, the book just didn't land for me.

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC.

Thank you, NetGalley, for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I always appreciate when books are targeted towards younger audiences, in this case, middle graders, but the quality of writing remains high enough not to talk down to them or be unengaging for older audiences. I also appreciate the trickiness of addressing the subject matter: kids who are simply "tomboys", i.e. girls but a bit more masculine than the usual feminine presentation, and kids who simply do not feel like girls at all but lack the language or concepts to be able to articulate the feeling, much less actually override their parents' views of who they should be and what they should look like.

I wasn't initially a fan of this being set in the seventies but by the end, I'm convinced that this time period as a setting actually works better than a modern day context because we have a family that is semi-isolated from major cities and other people in the community but are still big churchgoers and have a very small school where 300 kids from Kindergarten to High School go together to study. This setting works really well as a means for kids who are living in non-metropolitan areas or are part of religious families in modern day to understand the idea of guilt about disobeying parents, but also being forced to tell little white lies to appease adults in their lives.

I particularly enjoyed the repurposing of yet another doll for Jess, who absolutely does not want any more dolls to play with, as a boy, after changing "his" appearance and giving him a name and voice. "Mickey" flourishes after the most basic social gender affirming care (a haircut and more masculine clothes) and gives Jess a mouthpiece to be funny and convincing enough to advocate for herself with her parents and siblings. Jess using Mickey's affectations and comedic style to express herself more convincingly and advocate for herself was delightful to watch, as was her slowly realising that she needed to take those aspects of herself and channel them through her own voice rather than a doll's.

I also enjoyed (by the end) the way that families are depicted as realistically flawed. Older brothers do not want younger sisters tagging along with them for "boy activities", and Jess wants to make friends with the boys in her class because she relates more to their activities and interests, but is forced to befriend girls because spending too much time with boys at this age results in teasing for the girl about liking the boy. Parents are doing their best to heal from their own trauma growing up and are still deeply flawed, but are learning slowly but surely how to be better. There are no clear-cut villains or heroes, just complex people interacting with each other and growing over the course of this book, and I love that we are modelling how it's okay to advocate for yourself and your loved ones, even within family, when the dynamics are hurtful to you and others.

All in all, aside from one censored "ass" from an adult who is annoyed, this book would be an excellent example for growing minds in middle-school about gender and how someone feels if they are not quite what they are presented to be and how it literally makes them feel isolated, shameful, and uncomfortable to be constantly put in that box.

I'm feeling a bit conflicted about this one. On the one hand, there were parts of this I really liked. Using a toy like a doll to explore a part of oneself is something I found relatable. Whether it's through a doll (imaginative play), art, writing, or some other creative outlet, many of us have found ways to explore the parts of ourselves we don't have the words for. These things give us space to learn and grow and gain confidence. I also found the dynamic, specifically the roles of the mother and father, to be incredibly realistic to an uncomfortable degree. The children's hidden alliance with their mother against and following their father's attacks, the ways they put up a shield when these outbursts happened, and the way the mother would talk him down later... those who know will find themselves getting tense just reading. I haven't really encountered much accurate representation of this kind of abuse, and it's both validating and thought-provoking.

What I was less sold on is the overall message, the main issue being that I'm not sure what it was. Maybe this was the author's intention: allowing the readers to come to their own conclusions. However, I was waiting for a moment where Jess or the narrative acknowledges that her being a girl wasn't the problem: it was the way girls are treated and the expectations placed upon them. However, that moment never really came, leaving me with the impression that the message was that if you don't like being treated like a girl (aka unfairly), you must not be one. Personally, I find that regressive. I don't actually think the author agrees with that sentiment due to certain choices she makes, so I think it's a lack of clarity in the story that makes it come across that way. With some changes, I think this story could sit well with me, but as it stands currently, I'm just not so sure.