So Devin Wore a Skirt

Devin needs to find the perfect outfit for Nanabapa’s milestone birthday, the one in which he feels the most comfortable, the most swishy, the most…himself. He settles on his sister’s glamorous party skirt and then, anxious about his family’s reaction, he covers it up with an intriguing mishmash of ninja and wizard wear. But Devin’s energetic dance moves soon put pay to his top layer disguise. His family’s response, however, is not quite what he anticipated. A gender-stereotype-busting narrative which stands heads and shoulders above the usual picture book, boy-puts-on-a-dress, trope by eschewing any simple conclusions about Devin’s choices and by locating this child’s desire to feel, simply, like himself within an extended South Asian family, smartly dismantling assumptions about where gender conventions and prejudice are located. This is Shireen Lalji’s debut and very accomplished.