I love to read, but I hate buying books for myself. The copy of Lily and Dunkin that I read for this review was given to me because I asked nicely (thank you, SCBWI-Los Angeles!) After I finished, however, I pulled out the Amazon gift card that’s been collecting dust on my desk since the day one of my students gave it to me last December, and I bought five more copies of this book.
Here’s why:
There are certain that books must be shared. They need to be discovered, and read, and passed along, and read again, and talked about, and spread throughout the neighborhood until every human has walked the journey from cover to cover with the characters and has come out stronger and wiser and ready to stand in the sun and face the world.
Lily and Dunkin is one of those books.
Some people are going to see reviews of Lily and Dunkin and say, “Oh, that’s some transgender book,” or “That’s an LGBTQ book, it doesn’t apply to me,” or “It’s about bipolar, too depressing, where’s the newest Diary of a Wimpy Kid?”
No. It’s not about any of those things. It’s true that Lily Jo must overcome the challenges of being trapped in a boy’s body. It’s also true that Dunkin must go through an ordeal every day just to survive bipolar disorder. But those issues are not what define Lily and Dunkin, no matter what someone tells you.
The most important truth is that Lily and Dunkin is the story of every single thirteen-year-old kid. Every kid who's walked the earth since the beginning of time, every kid who is here now, and every kid who is yet to come. Every kid goes through what Lily and Dunkin go through, no hormone blockers or anti-psychotic meds necessary.
Every kid faces loneliness. Every kid wants to reach out and share their truth with someone else but hesitates, because everyone else’s life looks so much better on the outside. This is what Lily and Dunkin is about. Both characters are hiding; hiding behind names, behind clothes, behind versions of themselves that are driving them insane. They try to be what the world expects of them and discover that it leads to more loneliness, more irritation, and more sadness.
Two of the biggest themes in this book are not about transgender or bipolar. The first is spelled out by Dunkin on page 90 when he finds himself in a friend dilemma at his new school:
“I feel like this is a test I didn’t study for.” Both Lily and Dunkin could use that statement to define just about everything that happens to them throughout the story. How can anyone prepare themselves for life at thirteen years old?
When a kid reads a book, it teaches her what to do. Give a kid the right book and you’ve given her a problem solving kit she won’t find anywhere else. Books let you see. Books let you walk those two moons in that other guy’s moccasins. Books put you right in the middle of that hard battle that someone else is fighting. Books can help you study for this test that is life. And reading this book, this very special book, may just help a kid discover that second theme, which Dunkin spells out for us a little over a hundred pages later:
“And I know – for the first time in a long time – I know that everything’s going to be okay. That I’m going to be okay. Maybe not right now. But someday soon.”
Kids are survivors when we put the right tools in their hands. Lily and Dunkin can be one of these tools. Give this to a young teenager who is struggling with gender identity. Give it to someone who is trying to relate to their schoolmates in spite of their bipolar disorder. But give it to the other kids, too. The one whose dad walked out, or whose mom lost her job because the boss caught her drinking, or the one dealing with adoption issues, or even the one who just feels like she can’t come up for air in the social mess that is the American middle school. The struggle of the thirteen-year-old is universal. They’ll get it. And they all need to know it’s going to be okay, someday.
I truly love Lily and Dunkin but I hope I never, ever have a copy sitting on my bookshelf collecting dust. These two kids have work to do, and it’s up to me, and you, to make sure that their job gets done. Buy this book, enjoy it, but please pass it on.
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