I Read Queer Books

“Sometimes it’s hard to feel real. It’s hard to even feel trans because people don’t believe us, but I know who I am.”

From the publisher:

“Poet and author Robin Gow’s moving middle-grade novel in verse Dear Mothman is about a young trans boy dealing with the loss of his friend by writing to his favorite cryptid.

Halfway through sixth grade, Noah’s best friend and the only other trans boy in his school, Lewis, passed away in a car accident. Adventurous and curious, Lewis was always bringing a new paranormal story to share with Noah. Together they daydreamed about cryptids and shared discovering their genders and names.

After Lewis’s death, lonely and yearning for someone who could understand him like Lewis once did, Noah starts writing letters to Mothman, wondering if he would understand how Noah feels and also looking for evidence of Mothman’s existence in the vast woods surrounding his small Poconos town. Noah becomes determined to make his science fair project about Mothman, despite his teachers and parents urging him to make a project about something “real.”

Meanwhile, as Noah tries to find Mothman, he also starts to make friends with a group of girls in his grade, Hanna, Molly, and Alice, with whom he’d been friendly, but never close to. Now, they welcome him, and he starts to open up to each of them, especially Hanna, whom Noah has a crush on. But as strange things start to happen and Noah becomes sure of Mothman’s existence, his parents and teachers don’t believe him. Noah decides it’s up to him to risk everything, trek into the woods, and find Mothman himself.”

My Review

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This book had been on my radar for a few months, mostly because I found the concept equally endearing and humorous. The deeply grounded message of a transboy dealing with the anxieties of middle school combined with the fantastical world of cryptid lore? How did Gow come up with this stuff?

Okay… this book was really cute in a way I wasn’t fully expecting. I read very few middlegrade books (probably about 1 out of every 50), but I still found this really sweet. It’s a little silly and childish at points, but it is fully appropriate for this book.

Noah’s struggles of being trans, autistic, and a bit of an outcast are conveyed in a voice which feels fitting and appropriate. This book is entirely in verse, but mantains a really strong sense of narrative. From a close reading and literature perspective, I find the comparison of trans people to cryptids very compelling. Gow elegantly describes how both groups’ existence can be devastatingly deeply tied to the belief systems of other people. Noah believes in Mothman because he wants his peers to believe in him, a story with is strikingly heartfelt.

I would give it a solid 3.5 out of 5 stars for me, but probably a 4.5 for a middle grade reader.

Further Resources

You can learn more about being an ally to transgender youth here https://www.thetrevorproject.org/resources/guide/a-guide-to-being-an-ally-to-transgender-and-nonbinary-youth/