“London feels stuck. His school friends think he’s this confident kid who likes video games and will kick your butt if you get on his bad side. His high-achieving parents think he’s a genius coder and are pushing him to pursue that as a future career. None of this is true. London feels anxiety in crowds, and what he really wants to do is be by himself and read books. He dreams of being a best-selling author like his idols, but no one knows that except for Naya, his best friend and next-door neighbour, who all the kids at school think is London’s girlfriend. Not knowing what else to do, London starts an anonymous online comic called “Is There A Boy Like Me,” where he expresses his true feelings and explores what his life would be like if he could just be who he wanted to be. When the comic goes viral, it starts a global conversation about what being a boy really means, with London directly in the middle of it all. Is There a Boy Like Me? explores themes of social situations, family and relationships, identity and self-worth, particularly through the lens of toxic masculinity – the limitations and pressures placed on boys that code them to bury their feelings, “man up” and never be “feminine” or weak. Anyone with boys or men in their lives (i.e., all of us) knows how insidious this messaging is, and the personal and collateral damage it can cause. While many books focus on strong female protagonists, far fewer give boys models that help name and push back against toxic masculinity. (See some comps below.) As Kern says, “So why me? And why do I want to write a story geared toward middle grade children? Because they need to know that they’re allowed to be who they are, not who anyone else wants them to be. It took me to my adult years to feel comfortable enough to be myself. By writing this book, I want to give kids, young boys in particular, the gift of feeling seen and understood in a way that I never did.””–
