Parrotfish [Hardcover]

Ellen Wittlinger (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 10, 2007

Last week I cut my hair, bought some boys' clothes and shoes, wrapped a large ACE bandage around my chest to flatten my fortunately-not-large breasts, and began looking for a new name.

Angela Katz-McNair has never felt quite right as a girl. Her whole life is leading up to the day she decides to become Grady, a guy. While coming out as transgendered feels right to Grady, he isn't prepared for the reaction he gets from everyone else. His mother is upset, his younger sister is mortified, and his best friend, Eve, won't acknowledge him in public. Why can't people just let Grady be himself?

Grady's life is miserable until he finds friends in some unexpected places -- like the school geek, Sebastian, who explains that there is precedent in the natural world (parrotfish change gender when they need to, and the newly male fish are the alpha males), and Kita, a senior who might just be Grady's first love.

From acclaimed writer Ellen Wittlinger, this is the groundbreaking story of one teen's search for self and his struggle for acceptance.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 9 Up—As in Hard Love (S & S, 1999), Wittlinger tackles GLBT issues, introducing readers to Grady McNair, formerly known as Angela. This fast read follows Grady through the days between Thanksgiving and Christmas as he comes out as transgendered, faces issues of acceptance and rejection at school and at home, and falls in love with the hottest girl in school. Funny and thought-provoking in turns, the book does suffer from a few structural problems. The narrator's voice is very feminine for somebody who has internally always felt like a boy, and with little effort on his part, Grady ends the book with family approval, new and old friends, a previously forbidden pet, and the end of an embarrassing family holiday tradition. Flaws aside, the book is an excellent resource for building awareness about, and serving the increasing number of, transgendered teens. Helpful resources include Web sites and further-reading material. The lack of similar titles available, except for Julie Ann Peters's Luna (Little, Brown, 2004), and Wittlinger's captivating storytelling ability combine to make this a book that most libraries should stock. Grady eventually decides that he will always straddle the 50 yard line of gender, and the book should help teens be comfortable with their own place on that football field.—Cara von Wrangel Kinsey, New York Public Library
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Angela McNair is a boy! Oh, to the rest of the world she's obviously a girl. But the transgendered high-school junior knows that she's a boy. And so, bravely, Angela cuts her hair short, buys boys' clothing, and announces that his name is now Grady and that he is beginning his true new life as a boy. Of course, it's not as simple as that; Grady encounters an array of reactions ranging from outright hostility to loving support. To her credit, Wittlinger has managed to avoid the operatic (no blood is shed, no lives are threatened) but some readers may wonder if--in so doing--she has made things a bit too easy for Grady. His initially bewildered family rallies around him; he finds a champion in a female gym teacher; he loses but then regains a best friend while falling in love with a beautiful, mixed-race girl. Wittlinger, who is exploring new, potentially off-putting ground here (only Julie Anne Peters' Luna, 2004,has dealt with this subject before in such detail), manages to create a story sufficiently nonthreatening to appeal to--and enlighten--a broad range of readers, including those at the lower end of the YA spectrum. She has also done a superb job of untangling the complexities of gender identity and showing the person behind labels like "gender dysphoria." Grady turns out to be a very normal boy who, like every teen, must deal with vexing issues of self-identity. To his credit, he does this with courage and grace, managing to discover not only the "him" in self but, also, the "my." Michael Cart
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers (July 10, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1416916229
• ISBN-13: 978-1416916222
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.9 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #290,986 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Important Novel That Just Misses the Mark, July 7, 2007

By 

truecolors - See all my reviews

This review is from: Parrotfish (Hardcover)

I thought this novel was okay. It was well written, as all of Wittlinger's book are. She had wonderful characters and quite a bit of humor. I really liked everyone, especially Sebastian. I hope there's someone in real life just like him! Angela/Grady was very easy to like and understand.

My problem with it is that Grady's transgendered natured seemed to... technical. For me, the book on scratched the surface on how it feels to be transgender. It felt secondhand and distant. And for someone who claims not to like labels, Grady sure loves to use them. "Transgendered" and "Gender Dysphoria" were thrown around true to dictionary definitions.

Basically, the core of this story reads like an afterschool special, not a true-to-life drama and that takes away from the overall quality of the story. I'd recommend Luna over this one. And for a great novel that features a boy named Grady, definitely check out Target by Kathleen Jeffrie Johnson!

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Courtesy of Teens Read Too, July 10, 2007

By 

TeensReadToo "Eat. Drink. Read. Be Merrier." (All Over the US & Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Parrotfish (Hardcover)

Angela Katz-McNair isn't your typical teenage girl. She is, in fact, a boy. Sure, she may have the body parts that science uses to dictate her gender, but, in this case at least, science has gotten it all wrong.

Shortly before Christmas, Angela announces to her family that she's decided to act on the issue of being a boy trapped in the body of a girl. Her name is now Grady. She's cut her hair short and she's wearing boy's clothes. Grady is determined to make the change permanent, and as complete as he possibly can.

He starts by announcing his decisions to his family, which is met with assorted reactions. His dad seems to take the news in stride; after all, Grady was always a tomboy who did "guy stuff" with him anyway. His sister, Laura, is sure that Grady is out to ruin her life, and her high school experience. His younger brother, Charlie, doesn't care all that much, as long as the news doesn't affect his video game playing. And his mother, well, his mother isn't at all sure what to think, how to act, or what to do.

Since Grady is determined, he doesn't just turn into a transgendered person at home. He makes his intentions known at school, too, and you can probably guess what some of the consequences are. Friends are no longer friends; indifferent acquaintances become outright enemies. But there are also bright moments in Grady's new life: he makes a new best friend, Sebastian, who introduces him to the scientific wonder of the parrotfish, an ocean fish who can, and does, change gender. He also finds allies in Russ and Kita, a powerhouse high school super-couple who raise new questions in Grady's mind when he starts falling for Kita himself.

PARROTFISH is a wonderful, emotional novel dealing with the issues of identity and transgenderism. Previously, the only other book I've read on the matter is Julie Anne Peter's Luna, in which a girl was born in the body of a boy. I have to say that both novels are wonderful, and for teens questioning their own identity, are more than just a good read. Ms. Wittlinger has also included resources in the back of PARROTFISH for help and support. Overall, this is a great work of fiction, but it's also a great story dealing with one teen's struggle to find himself outside of society's norm.

Reviewed by: Jennifer Wardrip, aka "The Genius"

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Refreshingly un-dire, June 6, 2010

By 

Marauder The Slash Nymph "Spawn of a Library" (sometimes MN, sometimes MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Parrotfish (Hardcover)

Back in the 1980s and part of the 1990s, it was rare to find a gay or lesbian-related YA book with a happy ending. The real lives of gay and lesbian teenagers tended to be pretty depressing, at least until they could leave home and move to a more gay-friendly area.

The YA genre took a while to start writing about transgender (and bisexual, for that matter) teenagers, but by the time they did, America had become a place more accepting of GLBT people. Perfect? No, not by a long shot. But in an age where high schools have gay-straight alliances, newspapers write articles about kids coming out of the closet in middle school, TV shows feature teenage and adult GLBT characters, gay celebrity weddings merit the same huge gossip magazine writeups as straight celebrity weddings, another famous person seems to come out of the closet every month or so, and very few Americans can say they don't know anyone who is openly gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender, is it really that difficult to imagine that at least one teenage FTM kid living in Massachusetts could transition without utter rejection from his family or threats of violence?

I disagree that there's anything unrealistically happy about this book. Grady faces his share of problems, including social ostracization, bullies, family conflicts, and falling for another boy's girlfriend. I also don't think, as some reviewers have said, that there's anything particularly feminine-sounding about Grady's inner monologue. While "Luna" by Julie Anne Peters was also a good book, if I were a transgender teenager I would find "Parrotfish" much more uplifting and reassuring - a sign that maybe I could find a happy life within my existing one.

Questions of message and influence aside, I liked this book because of the way it pulled me in - reeled me in? - from the very first page. The characters are interesting and relatable; I was particularly interested in Grady's friendship with Eve, his lifelong best friend who's now more or less abandoned him in hopes of high school popularity. Their rift begins before Grady's announcement that he's a boy, which I thought was a good move on the author's part because it gives Grady problems that aren't related to his being transgender - problems that could happen to any high school kid. I also found the reactions of Grady's parents and teachers to be multi-layered and realistic; for example, although Grady's mom isn't happy at first that he's transitioning into a boy, she wants to know why he can't at least do it wearing nice-looking clothes that didn't come from Goodwill. One teacher's comment that the principal will have to "approve" Grady's name change before the teacher will address him as Grady made me laugh, groan, and roll my eyes. I remember micro-managing teachers and administrators like that from when I was in high school.

I'd recommend this book to any teenager who is transgender, interested in GLBT issues, or else just likes a good, involving story.