A book can help with
For the child who has worked out it would be easier to be like everybody else.
There comes a point when a child notices what everyone else is doing and starts shaving bits off themselves to match. The interest that isn’t cool, the way they talk at home, the thing they love that nobody else does. It usually happens quietly and it can be years before anyone notices.
Books push back. A story about a character who is unmistakably themselves, and better for it, gives a child permission you can’t give them yourself, because they’ve already decided you have to say nice things. The best of them don’t make being different into a lesson, they just show it being enjoyable.
Here’s what I’d reach for. Find your child’s age and start there. The feeling different page sits alongside this one.
Liking who you are, early
A toddler has not yet worked out that they might be wrong about themselves, which makes this the moment to say plainly that they are fine as they are. What follows is meant to be said over and over until it sticks.
A first book of affirmations, written to be said out loud and repeated back to you, with children of every kind in the pictures. Harrison started out running a group for fathers, and the directness of that shows on the page. The sort of book that ends up recited from memory in the car.
or on Bookshop.org
A young dolphin works out that the thing worth trusting is what they already know about themselves. Dodd’s books are short, rhyming and usually have a bit of foil catching the light, which is half the appeal at two. Gentle rather than instructive, which suits this age.
or on Bookshop.org
Just as you are
For little ones it’s about the plain, cheerful message that who they are is already fine.
A joyful, bouncing rhyme in which a girl declares she likes herself entirely, wild hair, funny toes and all, regardless of what anyone thinks. It’s exuberant rather than earnest, which is why it works. Lovely to read aloud, and children join in fast.
or on Bookshop.org
A blue crayon has a red label, and everyone keeps trying to make him draw strawberries and fire engines until someone finally sees him for what he is. It’s a clever, warm story about being wrongly labelled and about relief when the truth is recognised. Read on many levels, and beautifully simple.
or on Bookshop.org
Not shrinking to fit
Older children feel the pull to conform far more sharply. These show characters holding their ground.
Grace is told she can’t play Peter Pan because she’s a girl and because she’s Black, and she goes ahead and is magnificent. It’s a straightforward, cheering story about refusing other people’s limits. A modern classic, and still doing its work decades on.
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A graphic memoir about growing up deaf and spending years wishing to be invisible, before deciding the thing that marked her out was actually rather good. Because it’s her own childhood, it never rings false. Funny, quick to read and much loved.
or on Bookshop.org
Not shrinking to fit
This is the age when children start quietly editing themselves to match whatever room they are in. These are about a child who declines to do that, and neither pretends it costs nothing.
Billy is eleven, has a stammer, and wants to be a stand-up comedian, which everyone around him treats as a contradiction. It was written by a comedian whose own son stammers, and it is funny on nearly every page without ever making the stammer the joke.
or on Bookshop.org
Addie is autistic and sets out to get a memorial for the women tried as witches in her Scottish village, because she recognises exactly what happens to people who are seen as different. She refuses to mask, at some cost to herself, and the book is entirely on her side. Written by an autistic author.
or on Bookshop.org
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Something to do together
A page for setting down the things that make a child themselves, including the ones they’ve been tempted to hide. I’m making it now, and it will live here soon.
Wanting to fit in is normal and healthy, and a child who conforms a bit at school isn’t losing themselves. What’s worth watching is a child who starts hiding something they genuinely love.
So make an ordinary fuss of their particular interests rather than a performance of it, avoid teasing the things they care about, and let home be the place where nothing needs shaving off. A child who is entirely themselves somewhere copes far better everywhere else.
For you, the grown-up
There’s a companion page for grown-ups over on the main Book Quote Therapy library, with books for adults rediscovering who they are.
Read the grown-up version →These pages are written for the grown-ups looking after a child: parents, teachers and carers. A good book can sit beside a worried child, though it never stands in for a real conversation, or for proper support when something feels too big to carry alone.