Call Me Gray
A winter story wrapped in a cozy blanket, Call Me Gray by Bells Larsen, Andrew Larsen and Tallulah Fontaine is a mediation on identity.
Every winter a child and their dad build an ice rink in the backyard. Every year it’s the same but this year is different, the child feels different. While building the rink and having their first skate, the child and their father just talk, about identity, names and feelings.
While Andrew Larsen is a prolific children’s author, this is the debut picture book for both Bells Larsen and illustrator Tallulah Fontaine. The beauty of this story is its simplicity. It’s packaged as a conversation between a child and their father, a conversation not terribly unlike any conversation that a child will have with a parent while preoccupied with a task. This conversation focuses on identity, how the child feels different, how they look like a boy but sometimes feel like a girl, how they are sad they weren’t invited to a friend’s sleepover because it is for girls only.
This story exudes love from every carefully placed word. I love how the conversation ebbs and flows and how both characters are so patient and considerate with each other. It’s a powerful book for young readers who may be feeling much like Gray and an especially powerful example for the adults in their lives to see a wonderful example of how to be if they are approached by a child with similar feelings. Not just parents, but teachers, grandparents and friends would all benefit from having this story at their fingertips.
The dichotomy of tradition and change is so perfectly balanced in the story. The child and their father are participating in a tradition, something that has been a certain way for as long as they can remember but all traditions change and evolve over time, to adapt to the new reality of life. This tradition changes because Gray is changing. Although they still build the rink and go for the first skate and still have hot chocolate, the conversations are different and the child wants to be different, to feel more like themselves.
Talullah Fontaine’s illustrations are, like a cup of hot chocolate after a skate, sublime. The simple illustrations give readers a little more context to the story but really allow the words to be the star. It's such a warm hug and their illustrations set just the right tone for the story.
