Read by TBD

A parent's love letter to a daughter who has always known exactly who she is. One ordinary day, a caseworker from the Department of Children and Families knocked on the Hays family's door to investigate an anonymous complaint about the upbringing of their transgender child. It was this knock, this threat, that began the family's journey out of the Bible Belt but never far from the hate and fear resting at the nation's core. Self-aware and intimate, A Girlhood asks us all to love better, not just for the sake of Hays's child but for children everywhere enduring injustice and prejudice just as they begin to understand themselves. A Girlhood is a call to action, an ode to community, a plea for empathy, a hope for a better future. A Girlhood is a love letter to a child who has always known exactly who she is-and who is waiting for the rest of the world to catch up. "Touching, combative, compelling…This memoir begins with the suspense of a thriller and ends with…hope." "Carolyn Hays's memoir is searing, haunting, and inspiring….In prose memorable for its gentleness and wisdom, Hays's story is about more than the transgender question: it's about ignorance and wisdom; hatred and love; men, women, and children. In the end, A Girlhood is about all of us." "A Girlhood is a transfixing odyssey of a mother stewarding a preternaturally wise child, and an American family circling to protect that child…A Girlhood is…an act of epic compassion."

Mode of access: World Wide Web