Gender Blender (novel)

Gender Blender (ISBN 0-385-74696-2, 2006) is a March 2006 novel written by Blake Nelson. The book explores the differences between males and females and dramatizes it in a way that children will understand.

Plot summary

Tom Witherspoon and Emma Baker used to be best friends in 2004, but now that it's 2006 (in the story), they're not buddies anymore. Emma has strayed away to join a new clique of girls at school called the "Grrlzillas" (a mixture of the words "girl" and "gorilla"). Tom doesn't understand, but he doesn't bother with her.

One day, Tom, under adolescent impulses, decides that he wants to see under the skirt of Margaret Cooper (a Grrlzilla), so he devises a plan -- he organizes a ball game and decides that he's going to throw the ball under the spot where Margaret will sit. However, he doesn't know that one of his classmates -- Jane Hennessey -- is going to play. He desperately tries to strike her out by hitting the ball. It lands towards the Grrlzillas and it rolls under Margaret's skirt. He gets tangled in the skirt and admits to the girls (who throw things at him and continuously call him "skirt perv") that he wanted to see Margaret's flowered underwear. The girls dismiss him as pathetic and go back to school. The chemistry between him and Emma is now really "not" good.

Later on in the novel, Emma and Tom both try to jump onto the same school trampoline, but they have a serious collision and unknowingly switch bodies and souls. Emma is now Tom, and Tom Emma. The next morning, Emma wakes up with an erection (as she calls it, a "boner"). At first she thought it was a chipmunk in the bed with her. Tom discovers he's having Emma's menstruating period, and he has to wear Emma's bras. Eventually in the end, they have another collision and become themselves again. [ [http://www.teenreads.com/reviews/0385746962.asp Olson, Kristi. "Gender Blender". Accessed Nov. 29, 2006.] ]

Publisher

This book was published by Random House on 28 March 2006.

External links

* [http://www.randomhouse.com/kids/genderblender/ Homepage of "Gender Blender"]
* [http://www.randomhouse.com/kids/genderblender/excerpt.htm Excerpt from Chapter One - "Baseball in the Rain"]

References