Julian is a mermaid

Is Aquaman a 🧜‍♂️? Because Jason Momoa is quite fetching and definitely a man 😀

I often wonder how popular mermaids/men would be in mythology etc if they were the other way round - fish top half and human bottom?

Ooh don't get me started on accents, I love them! And this is really fascinating - so the autistic child didn't 'absorb' the local accent the way children tend to..
But I digress and derail!

All the best with your DD, 2in2022twoyearson, you're doing her such a favour by showing her that she's not two things, she's one great little girl with a range of talents and interests from all across the 'stereotype' spectrum.
And with a supportive and thoughtful mam

It just goes to show the power of outside influences, doesn't it?🙄

I always think of accents as an example of this - parents could have the strongest Dublin accent in the entire world, but if the family moves to Cork, the kids will develop a Cork accent ASAP in order to fit in with their peers, not with their parents!

Your DD is lucky to have a mam/mum [delete according to your accent..] who is thinking deeply about this, and lucky to have so many good role models, and I'm sure she'll eventually get the message that boys and girls can be anything they darn well want when they grown up!😄

Lol! Kids say the darndest things... 😂

Thanks for the follow up, I'm glad the Julian book went..swimmingly and caused as few ripples as possible😄
Isn't it a pity though that your DD thinks that engineers have to be boys?

But that's not unusual, as this 2024 article from.. that well-known source of data on gender stereotyping, Stoke On Trent Live (it just came up first on Google) shows:
Eye-opening video shows gender stereotyping among children when it comes to careers - Stoke-on-Trent Live

It just goes to show that the battle to let little kids just be whatever they want to be, rather than what they should be as a stereotyped boy or girl, is far from won.

A clock that makes breakfast sounds wonderful, if your DD makes one, I'm first on the waiting list to buy it😄
Seriously, though - I hope she gets a chance to get hands-on and make lots of interesting things from Lego and kits and things like that. It's great for little girls to learn how to handle screwdrivers and bolts and nuts and that kind of thing early - useful skills if they go for a 'non-traditional' job later, as was my case, or even just doing jobs around the house.

Brill! In which case, definitely get a copy of My Body Is Me for home and one for school - it's loads better than Julian Is A Mermaid anyway.

Other books if you read chapter books at home:

• Woof by Allan Ahlberg (boy inadvertently turns into dog, fun and peril, is still boy really)
• Bill's New Frock by Anne Fine (boy inadvertently wears dress, learns stuff, is still boy)

Another sideways thought: how about encouraging dressing-up at home? My children are teens and young adults now, but we always had a proper old-fashioned dressing-up box at home mainly populated with stuff from jumble sales. None of my kids' friends had dressing-up boxes at home, and it was always the first thing visiting children got out for all of the primary school years. Impending World Book Day is a case in point: you can pretend to be who you like, you're still you underneath!
(Reckon I was the only mum at school who loved World Book Day - I loved helping my kids really thoroughly read their characters and work out costumes and accessories. I do miss those days!)

Sadly none of these ideas have helped my offspring, who range from thinking it's bonkers to completely stewed in this ideology, but hopefully gender ideology will have done a runner by the time your little one is much older. 🙏

Let's not forget the premier child trans organisation is called 'Mermaids'. I'm pretty certain that the autor of the book was trying to convey a trans message.

If not the concept of merman or merboy could have been introduced. Why shouldn't boys also be able to dress up and to swim about with a fish tail?

I've never been quite sure what I think about Julian is a Mermaid, so understand where you're coming from. But how about discussing the topic via some other books at home?

• My Body is Me! (buy one for home, another for school? "oops, I ordered two! Would you like it?")
• Dogger (old-fashioned dressing-up, sensitive boy who loves his cuddly toy, girl who is sporty)
• Doug the Bug is probably a bit young, but I quite like how it models boy-boy friendship
• Yellow Bird, Black Spider. Features living imaginatively and also realism. Short and very funny.

Re: interpretation of children's books, I think this is similar to Brenda is a Sheep. Brenda is a wolf who pretends to be a sheep, initially to get close to the sheep so she can eat them. By the end [SPOILER] she and the sheep are all friends and she hasn't eaten them ... yet! I know people think it is TRA propaganda but I can't read it as anything other than gender critical. It is so obvious that Brenda is a wolf and everyone knows that, even when they're saying, 'After all, Brenda is a sheep'. I read it to my kids (every child in Scotland received it one year, of course!) and at the end asked them if Brenda was really a sheep. Can you guess their answer?!

I do have concerns about the message that because the sheep budged up and were nice to Brenda she decided not to eat them but equally it's clear what her original intention was and that she is still very much a wolf. I think it's likely with a lot of these books, if you buy the bullshit you will find it convincing but if you don't it may well serve to reinforce your gender critical view. Because rainbows, sparkles and mermaid tails aren't actually going to convince most sane people that humans can transform into mermaids or change their sex. Or that a wolf in sheep's clothing is anything but that.

Guess who it was in 2018... Our pal Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer 😒

Neil Garman?? Get outta here! You're bustin' my chops [as they say in Coney Island]
That's an amazing coincidence - like there's a wormhole between two different threads

Wow... From that wiki page:

"Love's initial plan was to have Julián meet with drag queens on their way to a drag ball, inspired by RuPaul's Drag Race, but in an interview with PinkNews, she said she changed the characters to mermaids, as her research uncovered the mythical creature's significance to transgender people: "There's something about mermaids. Who knows if that's because they're magical creatures who can live between two realities or because they don't have any genitals."[3]

Beyond parody! I bet her agent was glad, though. Mermaids are a much easier sell to parents. And to children.

Completely by the by, I also clicked the link to find out what the Coney Island Mermaid Parade is, and apparently it's a real event in which they get a couple of celebs to be crowned mermaid king and queen. Guess who it was in 2018... Our pal Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer 😒

Well it looks like it started out as a trans-ish book about a little boy wanting to dress up as a drag queen, but it went merperson instead, fortunately.

I think it's probably not worth arguing that a boy would become a merboy/man not a mermaid, 'mermaid' is a fairly neutral word because 'maid' is out of circulation as meaning 'girl'.

And there was another point I wished to make ... oh yes - and also they don't actually exist - but don't tell the OP's DD😧

Let's just assume that the fish part is sex/gender neutral, and a boy or a girl could tack themselves on interchangeably, and the sum of the parts would be assigned the sex - and/or gender - of the human part.

Apart from Ethel sui generis Merman, as my learned friend DalzielOrNoDalzielAndDontPascoe points out.

I hope that clarifies this complex issue. I'm so glad I majored in Merminology and can be of service when controversies like this arise
OP - when you read the book yourself, you can see if there's anything that can't be explained away to your little DD by 'that's just because mermaids are magic'

From memory, I was disappointed to find out that the author does consider this a trans book. The actual book reads like the opposite, but somehow the author sees herself as a champion of genderism. I think.

Yes. It's a shame that parents have to be suspicious of children's literature. But sadly when a number of dodgy transactivists have abused children's literature to promote a niche adult ideology at young children, it's right that parents are sceptical and double check the nature of these books.

Transgender Trend have written about this - including the unforgivable grooming of toddlers into accepting sex change:

www.transgendertrend.com/trans-picture-books-little-children/

Snigger.

In my opinion it's a lovely book with beautiful illustrations. Julian doesn't change genders. He just dresses like a mermaid.