User:Bobamnertiopsis/OliverButtonIsASissy
Oliver Button Is a Sissy
Plot
[edit]Oliver Button is called a sissy for failing to enjoy activities that other boys his age enjoy. Instead, he prefers taking walks, jumping rope, playing with paper dolls, and playing dress-up. After his mother and father tell him he needs to get exercise, Oliver tells them he likes to dance, so they sign him up for dance classes. Some boys at his school take Oliver's tap shoes and play keep away with them, until some of his female classmates get ahold of the shoes and defend him. The boys write "Oliver Button is a sissy." on one of the school's walls.
Oliver's dance teacher, Ms. Leah, alerts him of an upcoming talent show in the town. After Oliver signs up, his male classmates tease him for tapdancing in the event. He practices for a month and performs a routine in the show to much applause from the audience. When a girl who had done a baton-twirling act wins first prize in the competition, Oliver is comforted by his parents and Ms. Leah who express their pride in him. The next day he is nervous to attend school. However, once there, he sees that that the writing on the wall has been changed to read "Oliver Button is a star!"
Writing and publication
[edit]Children's author and illustrator Tomie dePaola had begun writing Oliver Button by May 1978.[1]
The book was published on May 1, 1979, by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, recommended for ages three to eight years old.[2][3] dePaola both wrote and illustrated the 48-page book.[3]
Reception
[edit]A 1980 review in the journal The Reading Teacher described the book as "a charming, nonsexist portrayal of a child who is the classic outsider" and compared the work to Munro Leaf's The Story of Ferdinand (1936) and Taro Yashima's Crow Boy (1955).[4]
In an article shortly after dePaola's death in 2020, New Yorker writer Naomi Fry called the final pages of Oliver Button "a quintessential dePaola ending. The good hasn't come to completely replace the bad—the word 'Sissy' is still visible—but it has come to reside next to it."[5]
Through the end of the 2000s, Oliver Button and Charlotte Zolotow's William's Doll (1972) were the two most read and taught 1970s picture books dealing with gender nonconformity.[6]
Adaptations
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ Plank 1978, p. A-1.
- ^ Naidoo 2012, p. 102.
- ^ a b "Oliver Button Is a Sissy" 1979.
- ^ "Books for Children" 1980, p. 861.
- ^ Fry 2020.
- ^ Herzog 2009, p. 61.
Cited
[edit]- "Books for children". The Reading Teacher. 33 (7): 860–865. 1980. JSTOR 20195131.
- Fry, Naomi (April 6, 2020). "The delight and sadness of Tomie dePaola". The New Yorker. Archived from the original on April 19, 2020. Retrieved May 10, 2021.
- Herzog, Ricky (2009). "Sissies, dolls, and dancing: Children's literature and gender deviance in the seventies". The Lion and the Unicorn. 33 (1): 60–76. doi:10.1353/uni.0.0444.
- Naidoo, Jamie Campbell (2012). Rainbow family collections: Selecting and using children's books with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer content. Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited. ISBN 9781598849608.
- "Oliver Button Is a Sissy". [Review]. Publishers Weekly. May 30, 1979. Retrieved September 12, 2021.
- Plank, Nancy (May 7, 1978). "With a child in mind". Sunday News. p. A-1. Retrieved May 10, 2021 – via Newspapers.com.