Songbird in the Light

K-Gr 2–Flashes of the flamboyance that the gender-fluid lead author has turned into an art form in public life debut and shine out in this child’s manifesto, though perhaps more in the illustrations than the relatively spare monologue. “Mommy calls me her songbird,” the narrator declares. “She says that my voice is bigger than my body.” So it is that despite futile efforts to fit in at school (“They laugh at how I walk. And they laugh at how I talk.”), “I’m going to sing. I’m going to siiiiiing.” In Palmer’s radiant, exuberantly brushed paintings birds, flowers, and even raindrops swoop and dance as a child with dark skin raises up hands and voice until he’s literally soaring along with his song, and the peacock on the back of his shirt bursts out in a glorious fan of color. “Look at how I shine,” the young performer testifies triumphantly, standing at last on a stage before a jubilant audience that includes his mother, who uses a wheelchair, an encouraging music teacher, and several children who show signs of physical or neurological differences.