Lily and Dunkin

1. Bibliography
Gephart, D. 2016. Lily and Dunkin. New York, NY: Yearling. ISBN 9780374400118

2. Summary
Lily and Dunkin is told by switching between the perspectives of Lily (Timothy McGrother) and Dunkin (Norbert Dorfman) as they go through school in Gator Lake as eighth grade students. Lily struggles with being bullied at school for looking more like a girl than a boy which leads him to change his appearance to look more like a boy by cutting his long hair and wearing boyish clothes in hopes of stopping the bullying by the basketball jocks (Vasquez and the Neanderthals). Dunkin is a new student in Gador Lake and is immediately befriended with the basketball jocks, not knowing how they wrongly treat Lily, who he befriended before the school year began. Once Dunkin realizes how they treat Lily, he still chooses to be the jock’s friends as he makes the basketball team. Lily is torn by Dunkin’s betrayal, but still tries to be Dunkin’s friend when the jocks aren’t around. While becoming a part of the basketball team, Dunkin doesn’t want to take his antipsychotic pills since it’ll negatively affect his gameplay. This leads to a psychotic outbreak in a basketball game, revealing Dunkin’s family’s history of mental illness. Dunkin is taken away to Beckford Palms Mental Health Center, where he finally reconciles with his father’s suicide. Lily struggles with her family as her dad does not approve of Lily wanting to receive hormone blockers. This leads the family into counseling, which helps change the dad’s mind about hormone blockers and Lily’s overall change in becoming a girl. In the end, Lily confidently wears a dress at his school’s dance, and his dad arrives, surprises Lily as he wears a shirt that says “I love my DAUGHTER!”

3. Discussion
As soon as I finished reading Lily and Dunkin, I immediately began recommending it to friends of mine. I could not put it down because I truly enjoyed reading it from beginning to end. Whether I was cheering on Lily (Timothy) for standing up and staying true to herself, wanting to know the secret Dunkin (Norbert) was hiding, or hating the basketball jocks (Vazquez and the Neanderthals) , I found myself going through various ups and downs throughout.

Because this book discusses a 13-year-old boy wanting to start hormone blockers to be able to change into a girl, I am not sure if this would be suitable to find in a middle school library. I do, however, think that the bullying aspect of this book is one that should be used to discuss with students, which I especially think is important in the LGBTQ community and the middle grade age group as a whole.

4. Connections
As controversial as the hormone blocker topic may be, I think Lily and Dunkin would be a great book to use to discuss the topics of bullying and acceptance. It can also serve as a great reading lesson to discuss different perspectives because of the the book switches between Lily and Dukin’s point-of-views.

With the topic of bullying, students can see the hateful acts from the basketball jocks and what they do to Lily.

Acceptance is another great topic that can be discussed using this book because it shows Lily’s growing acceptance of herself and is proud of who she is and wants to be. Even though there are times when she chooses to dress like a boy to protect herself, Lily still does things for herself, such as dressing up for Halloween and wearing a dress to the school’s holiday dance.

Overall, Lily and Dunkin would not only be an interesting read to see life through the eyes of a transgender character, but it would be a great resource to use when discussing perspective because the author goes into detail and explains scenarios by alternative between the eyes of the two main characters.