This is How It Always Is
This is How It Always Is - Laurie Frankel
When he grows up, Claude says he wants to be a girl.
Rosie and Penn want Claude to be whoever Claude wants to be. They're just not sure they're ready to share that with the world. Soon the entire family is keeping Claude's secret. Until one day it explodes.
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This is How It Always Is - Laurie Frankel
9/9 - 9/16
9/9 - 9/16
This is how a family keeps a secret... and how that secret ends up keeping them. This is how a family lives a happily ever after... until happily ever after becomes complicated. This is how children change... and then change the world.
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| This is How It Always Is |
Rosie and Penn aren't opposed to Claude's behavior. In fact, they support it. They want him to be whoever he wants to be. But that's just the problem - Claude doesn't know.
This is How It Always Is shows Rosie and Penn's struggles with adults and other members of their community, as well as other kids. They support his situation, but they don't seem to understand it. The only person Claude can confide in is his grandmother, Carmelo. He asks, "Will you love me even if I keep wearing a dress?" and she replies, "I will love you even if you wear a dress made out of puppies." Carmelo was the one who first supported Claude's preferences by buying him a bikini, even though everyone else was opposed to it at first.
Unfortunately, many transgender children and teens don't have parents as supportive as Rosie and Penn. Even if they do, there are still people out there who don't always support transgender people, and in the book, that becomes clear. Claude's kindergarten teacher, Miss Appleton, becomes skeptical of his tendency to wear a dress to school and tries to discourage Rosie from letting him go with a purse as a lunch box. Claude's friends suddenly don't want to play with him anymore, and their parents even went as far as threatening him with weapons. As Claude becomes Poppy, he, even as a small child, understands that there are some things that are okay, and some things people consider to not be.
The book also shows Claude's older brothers, Roo, Ben, Rigel and Orion. Roo and Ben are in middle school and are old enough to worry about what other people will say, but they don't mind. Rigel and Orion have accepted it and see no reason why anyone else shouldn't. Rosie and Penn silently agree with Roo and Ben's worries, but try to keep them hidden in the hopes that they won't becomes problems. Later on, Claude has started to wear dresses and skirts to school instead of changing when he comes home, and though he has to use the nurse's bathroom, he hasn't experienced much separation. The other kids are curious but stop asking after their questions have been answered.
The book is an accurate representative of what happens in real life, and though it's fiction, Claude's situation is similar to many others. Sometimes, transgender children or teens are afraid to show it, or they don't know whether they feel transgender or not. Part One of This is How It Always Is shows what a family of that size and mind would go through on such a journey, and what they might come up against later on.
9/16 - 9/23
In this part of the book, Claude, now turned Poppy, has been on the receiving end of hatred in her community. Her parents, worried about the family's safety, decide to move them somewhere more accepting, so they move away from Wisconsin to Washington in the hopes that Claude can start over as Poppy. Right away, Poppy makes friends with the neighbors' little daughter, nobody even knows about her past. Poppy, though, it still worried that her new life will far apart like her last one.
"Which do you prefer? Should we tell Aggie? She's such a good friend, baby. You could tell her, and then she'd know, and everything would be fine. You could decide to tell other friends too, or if you told Aggie not to tell anyone else, you know she wouldn't."
"What about Nicky?" Barely a whisper.
"Nicky?"
"Remember how Nicky used to be my best friend, and then he found out about me, and he was so grossed out he tried to shoot Daddy?"
"Oh, sweetheart, no. Nicky was your friend. He was little, but he loved you in his way. It was his father who didn't understand. Nicky didn't try to shoot Daddy. Nicky's daddy didn't even try to shoot Daddy."
"But after he found out, he didn't want to be my friend anymore."
Back in Wisconsin, when Poppy's secret came out, her old friends and family, who had used to accept her, refused to communicate with her any longer. Rosie and Penn moved her away to somewhere more accepting, but Poppy still wonders if she should tell her new friends or not. She's worried that if she does, they won't accept her and that they'll reject her like her old friends did. This only one of the many problems Poppy faces throughout her story, and it won't be the last. This quote stuck out because even though Poppy is only in first grade, she still understands what could possibly happen if she let out her secret again.
Review
This is How It Always Is - Laurie Frankel
This is How It Always Is, written by Laurie Frankel, depicts five-year-old Claude Walsh-Adams, a kindergartner with dreams of being a girl. The story, told through the eyes of everyone in the family, helped tell it from the point of view of a grown-up and child alike. The story takes place first in Madison, Wisconsin, then in Seattle, Washington. It shares the fictional story of Claude as he becomes Poppy, and the struggle this family has with covering up the secret, finding who to share it with, and whether this is something anyone really is. This is How It Always Is was a fictional but well-written example of real human emotions and the ever-nagging problem of never seeming to be true to yourself. The novel connected to the real world in a way that readers could understand best: through the family. Because the story was told in the setting of the family house and atmosphere, it had a very different feel than if it had been told through the atmosphere of an outsider or just Claude himself. This style of writing helped me personally understand the worries of everyone in the family and how people of different ages and experiences interpret things differently than others; knowing the point of view of the children and parents at once was beneficial when trying to understand seperate parts of the book. However, some transitions were slightly rocky and difficult to follow, especially towards the major climax in the story. As Poppy grows older, more starts threatening to expose her secret, and because of that, there's more action towards the middle of the novel. Though it was hard to follow at first, it grew easier when reread and eventually began to make sense. The way the author illustrated each of her points made an impact on my point of view and helped me understand more about the topic. I would definitely read it again, and I would recommend it to someone.
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