User:Bobamnertiopsis/OliverButtonIsASissy

Oliver Button Is a Sissy

Plot
Oliver Button is called a sissy for failing to enjoy activities that other boys his age enjoy. Instead, he prefers taking walks, jumping rope, playing with paper dolls, and playing dress-up. After his mother and father tell him he needs to get exercise, Oliver tells them he likes to dance, so they sign him up for dance classes. Some boys at his school take Oliver's tap shoes and play keep away with them, until some of his female classmates get ahold of the shoes and defend him. The boys write "Oliver Button is a sissy." on one of the school's walls.

Oliver's dance teacher, Ms. Leah, alerts him of an upcoming talent show in the town. After Oliver signs up, his male classmates tease him for tapdancing in the event. He practices for a month and performs a routine in the show to much applause from the audience. When a girl who had done a baton-twirling act wins first prize in the competition, Oliver is comforted by his parents and Ms. Leah who express their pride in him. The next day he is nervous to attend school. However, once there, he sees that that the writing on the wall has been changed to read "Oliver Button is a star!"

Writing and publication
Children's author and illustrator Tomie dePaola had begun writing Oliver Button by May 1978.

The book was published on May 1, 1979, by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, recommended for ages three to eight years old. dePaola both wrote and illustrated the 48-page book.

Reception
A 1980 review in the journal The Reading Teacher described the book as "a charming, nonsexist portrayal of a child who is the classic outsider" and compared the work to Munro Leaf's The Story of Ferdinand (1936) and Taro Yashima's Crow Boy (1955).

In an article shortly after dePaola's death in 2020, New Yorker writer Naomi Fry called the final pages of Oliver Button "a quintessential dePaola ending. The good hasn't come to completely replace the bad—the word 'Sissy' is still visible—but it has come to reside next to it."

Oliver Button, alongside Charlotte Zolotow's William's Doll (1972), was one of the two most read and taught picture books of the 1970s dealing with gender nonconformity through the 2000s.