Unabridged Episode 21: Laurie Frankel's This is How it Always is

​Quick Summary: This episode is about This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel.  Parents Rosie and Penn struggle with balancing the needs of their five children, navigating their inclination both to support and to protect their youngest child who is exploring  gender identity. This is the story of a family who is doing their best, despite all of the uncertainty, to help themselves navigate their way in the world.

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My Take: I absolutely loved this tender depiction of a family of seven as they worked to navigate their way through the world together. Frankel's depiction of Claude's journey as he transitioned into Poppy was powerful and compassionate, and Frankel never suggested that Rosie and Penn knew the way forward or had all the answers, but she instead revealed the daily pathway they all took toward a better, truer life for themselves and all of their children.
My conclusion: This book was a clear winner for me. While I did not fly through it, the prose was elegant and whimsical, and I was swept away by the characters and their journey. I so appreciated Frankel's portrayal of parenting and how hard it is to know the right thing to do, and I loved her honest, raw depiction of what transitioning can be like for a transgender child who is aware from early childhood that she is a girl.  5/5 stars. 
Favorite Quotes: 

• "You only guess. This is how it always is. You have to make these huge decisions on behalf of your kid, this tiny human whose fate and future is entirely in your hands, who trusts you to know what’s good and right and then to be able to make that happen. You never have enough information. You don’t get to see the future. And if you screw up, if with your incomplete, contradictory information you make the wrong call, well, nothing less than your child’s entire future and happiness is at stake. It’s impossible. It’s heartbreaking. It’s maddening. But there’s no alternative."  - This quotation resonated in every part of me. As a mother of young children, I am discovering how fraught daily life is as I constantly make decisions that will alter their lives for better or worse. I love the way Frankel continually shows the perilous situation of parents 
• [Regarding Claude's transition to Poppy] "​The kindergarteners were unfazed. Very little is unalterable as far as five-year-olds are concerned. Very little doesn’t change. One day those squiggly lines in books transmute into words. One day actual pieces of your mouth start falling off. One day your beloved resolves into a kind of ratty stuffed animal, and for the first time in your life, you feel fine about leaving him home. One day, like magic, you can balance on two wheels. That one day you could be a boy and the next become a girl was not out of their dominion." I love the way Frankel highlights the malleability of a child. It truly  is remarkable how unsurprising those kinds of things are to children. So often, it's adults who complicate things and make them into issues. 

Teaching Tips: This would be a good option for lit circles, but it would be a tough read for a lot of students just because it's long and not fast-paced. However, I just listened to George  by Alex Gino, and I LOVED it! It's middle grade and would be a great book for middle school or high school students. It's quick, but it does an amazing job of depicting what transitioning is like and how challenging it can be but also how fulfilling it can be.