The Gender Wheel - School Edition: a story about bodies and gender for every body

Summary of Book

“This is our world.
Like many things in nature it’s round and holds everyone at the same time.
This is the Gender Wheel.
Like our world it’s round and holds everyone at the same time too…”

In 2010 Maya introduced the Gender Wheel and the Gender Team in the Gender Now Coloring Book. It was a jammed packed coloring extravaganza exploring bodies, nature and history in relation to multiple gender identities. It also opened up the possibility of play and expansion around our still limited language of “boy” and “girl.”

Now the Gender Team returns, expanded and stronger than before, inviting you on a picture book journey through the Gender Wheel. This School Edition takes the original book, The Gender Wheel (2017), and puts clothes on all the kids to be more conducive to school environments. It is a powerful opportunity for kids to understand the origins of the current binary gender system, how we can learn from nature to see the truth that has always existed and revision a new story that includes room for all bodies and genders. The Gender Wheel offers a nature-based, holistic non-western framework of gender in a kid-friendly way. Also included are Teacher Tips on how to hold a holistic perspective on gender in the classroom. www.genderwheel.com

They She He Me: Free to Be! is a powerful companion to this book and uses pronouns as a place to expand ideas about gender and celebrate personal expression. Together these books offer an integrated foundation to talk to kids about gender and expand our thinking as we remember that we ALL belong.

Author / Illustrator Biography

Maya Gonzalez is a ferociously quirky femme with a deep love for daily drag and dress up. She's also an artist, progressive educator and award-winning children's book illustrator and author. Her work focuses on art and story as powerful tools of reclamation and transformation both personally and culturally. Currently her primary tool of activism is creating and publishing radical children's books that tell the truth of who we are and what we can be. She invites grown-ups and kids alike to do the same through her online school and free kids program that teach a holistic approach to creating and publishing children's books. Maya lives and plays in San Francisco with her partner Matthew and two freewheeling kids. Together they dance the wheel. www.mayagonzalez.com