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list price: $6.99
edition:eBook
also available: Hardcover Paperback
category: Children's Fiction
published: Aug 2016
ISBN:9781554989065
publisher: Groundwood Books Ltd

A Boy Named Queen

by Sara Cassidy

tagged: friendship, peer pressure, self-esteem & self-reliance
Description

Who will be brave enough to make friends with the boy named Queen? Sara Cassidy’s acclaimed novel, A Boy Named Queen, is now available in paperback!

Evelyn is both aghast and fascinated when a new boy comes to grade five and tells everyone his name is Queen. Queen wears shiny gym shorts and wants to organize a chess/environment club. His father plays weird loud music and has tattoos.

How will the class react? How will Evelyn?

Evelyn is an only child with a strict routine and an even stricter mother. And yet in her quiet way she notices things. She notices the way bullies don’t seem to faze Queen. The way he seems to live by his own rules. When it turns out that they take the same route home from school, Evelyn and Queen become friends, even if she finds Queen irritating at times. Why doesn’t he just shut up and stop attracting so much attention to himself.

Yet Queen is the most interesting person she has ever met. So when she receives a last-minute invitation to his birthday party, she knows she must somehow persuade her mother to let her go, even if Queen’s world upends everything her mother considers appropriate.

Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.4.3
Describe in depth a character, setting, or event in a story or drama, drawing on specific details in the text (e.g., a character's thoughts, words, or actions).

About the Author

Sara Cassidy

SARA CASSIDY is a journalist, editor and the author of twenty children’s books. Her books have won the Sheila A. Egoff Children's Literature Prize and been Junior Library Guild selections. They have been nominated for the Governor General's Literary Award in Young People's Literature, Chocolate Lily Award, Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children’s Book Award, Diamond Willow Award, Silver Birch Express Award and the Sunburst Award. Sara lives in Victoria, British Columbia.

Recommended Age, Grade, and Reading Levels
Age:
8 to 11
Grade:
3 to 6
Reading age:
8 to 11
Awards
  • Short-listed, Manitoba Young Readers' Choice Awards
  • Short-listed, Rocky Mountain Book Award
  • Short-listed, Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children's Book Award
  • Short-listed, Diamond Willow Award
  • Commended, Cooperative Children's Book Center Choices List
  • Commended, CBC Best Books of 2016
  • Commended, Quill & Quire Reviewer Pick
Editorial Reviews

This is a book of gentle nudges that could open some minds as well as some possibility for discussion.

— Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

A small, eloquent book with a powerful message.

— Kirkus Reviews

Cassidy does a lovely job of letting the lessons of embracing individuality, confidence, acceptance, and tolerance clearly and cleverly reveal themselves in this short but punchy novel.

— Quill & Quire

Cassidy’s novella is a little gem … a lovely book with which to begin the school year, not only for the message of tolerance it conveys, but also for the beautiful language in which it has been delivered.

— Canadian Children’s Book News

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Librarian review

A Boy Named Queen

Queen, a fifth grade student, defies the bullies at his school with his radical acceptance of himself and his gender-fluid identity. In spite of those who wish to punish Queen for his joyful defiance of the gender binary, Queen bravely embraces his identity, in a story about resiliency and tolerance. The short novel will help young readers build understanding of gender fluidity and acceptance.

Source: Association of Canadian Publishers. Diversity Collection Selection 2017.

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