Princess Pete

Pete is the book’s narrator; sometimes Pete is a prince, at other times a princess. Pete loves to play with the boys and sometimes with the girls. Pete is yet to have a best friend but has a fair few friends. On some days Pete’s choice of clothes is ‘pink shorts, yellow tops and blue wellies’. On other days Pete chooses to wear ‘green jumpers, flowery trousers and butterfly sandals’. Playing beauty salon with Mum is something Pete enjoys, but so too is getting mucky. There are times when Pete likes to play alone, bringing imaginary worlds and dreams to life: a favourite is having beautiful pegacorns flying around as hedgehogs sing.

Some people are confused by Pete’s behaviour and way of being, asking if Pete is a boy; others ask if the child is a girl. At times Pete finds it hard to know how to respond but Mum and dad tell such people that Pete is Pete. ‘Princess Pete!’ our narrator tells readers.

‘I may have been born a boy, but I don’t always feel like the boys. Sometimes I feel more like the girls. Sometimes I feel somewhere in between.’ Non-binary or gender fluid children who have yet to be familiar with these terms may well use language like that and it’s a great way to help them explain how they feel in an age-appropriate manner, particularly if, as we see in one of Frenci’s illustrations, there are people finger pointing at the protagonist. This is an affirming story for all young children.