Morris Micklewhite and the Tangerine Dress

Morris Micklewhite and the Tangerine Dress

Author: Christine Baldacchino

Illustration: Isabelle Malenfant

Genre: Realistic Fiction

Grade Level: Pre-K to 3^rd grade

“Morris swish, swish, swished. The tangerine dress crinkle, crinkle, crinkled. His shoes click, click, clicked.”

The story is about a boy named Morris that likes to wear a tangerine dress because he likes the color and it reminds him of his mother’s hair, the sun, and tiger. He is a sweet boy that likes to paint, do puzzles, drink apple juice and sing. But whenever he wears the tangerine dress, all the boys and the girls in the class befriends him. They tell that the boy should not wear a dress and refuses to sit next to him, play with him, and talk to him. One evening, he has a dream about visit a safari in space. There he sees two big elephants, a tangerine tiger, and a sun. The next day he paints his dream. When his mother asks who is sitting on top of the elephant that is wearing the tangerine dress. Morris proudly says it's him. He goes back to school on his tangerine dress where the children again tease him. But this time, Morris simply takes out his painting and imagines himself in space. The boys are astonished and ask him if they could join him. At the end, after all the hardship his classmate gives him, he makes friends while still wearing his tangerine dress.

The illustration on this book is amazing. It is filled with color which will surely lure the children to read this book. The illustration takes the whole of the page. The words are either on the top or the bottom of the page. One thing to note about this book is the emotion that Morris displays as the story goes. Without even looking at the words, the readers cannot help but feel sad for Morris when he is nearly in tears.

Thoughts:

I have to say. I was smiling the whole time when I was reading this book. Well except the part when Morris was being bullied. But other than that, this book was so heartfelt and honest. I have not come across that many books that deal with gender and sexuality that is targeted at such an early age. So, reading this book I felt happy. The society has been so fixated on the way how things should be but what we don’t realize is that children are born without any knowledge how things should be. It is us, the adults, that sculpt them the way we want. Children should have a chance to express themselves any way they want. Does not matter if the boys play with Barbie and the girls play with a firetruck. If they like the toy, let them play! This book will be great to read aloud in class since Morris always repeats the sound the dress makes when he wears. There are some great vocabularies that feature as well. But most of all, I will read this book to teach students that it is ok to play, wear anything they are comfortable with. They are free to express themselves anyway their heart desire!