Happy new year, everyone! We’re starting off the year with non-fiction; we’ll be reading Tomboy Survival Guide by Ivan E. Coyote (they/them)! Here’s the summary provided by Goodreads below:

Tomboy Survival Guide is a funny and moving memoir told in stories, in which Ivan recounts the pleasures and difficulties of growing up a tomboy in Canada’s Yukon, and how they learned to embrace their tomboy past while carving out a space for those of us who don’t fit neatly into boxes or identities or labels.  Ivan writes movingly about many firsts: the first time they were mistaken for a boy; the first time they purposely discarded their bikini top so they could join the boys at the local swimming pool; and the first time they were chastised for using the women’s washroom. Ivan also explores their years as a young butch, dealing with new infatuations and old baggage, and life as a gender-box-defying adult, in which they offer advice to young people while seeking guidance from others. (And for tomboys in training, there are even directions on building your very own unicorn trap.)  Tomboy Survival Guide warmly recounts Ivan’s adventures and mishaps as a diffident yet free-spirited tomboy, and maps their journey through treacherous gender landscapes and a maze of labels that don’t quite stick, to a place of self-acceptance and an authentic and personal strength. These heartfelt, funny, and moving stories are about the culture of difference—a “guide” to being true to one’s self. genre: memoir rep + cw: being a memoir, it recounts the author’s personal experiences with gender; some shorts include uses of slurs, misgendering, and an instance of SA Acquisition of the botm (in any format: physical, audio, digital) will be your responsibility for the time being. Try to make use of your local library: there’s a physical copy available at Koerner, and several at various VPL locations (2 physical copies are currently available as of 8:48AM PST at the Central Branch, and they have the ebook too for fellow Libby users out there)! Graphics made by Jenny