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INTERMEDIATE FICTION
Jagerfeld, Jenny

King Bro!

150 pp. | Arctis | February, 2024 | Trade ISBN 9781646900404 $16.00
(2) 4-6 Translated by B.J. Woodstein. Eleven-year-old Marcus lives in Stockholm, but his mom's job as a voice actor means he's spending the summer in Malmo, a city in southern Sweden. At first Marcus is nervous around his tough new neighbor, Mikkel (or is he saying "Me kill"? It's hard for Marcus to understand his dialect) -- a kid covered in tattoos. But after Marcus proves himself in a skateboarding contest (and a gnarly skateboarding accident), Mikkel declares them "blood brothers." They spend the summer together, getting "tattooed" (with pen) by Mikkel's teenage brother, sneaking out to an amusement park in Copenhagen, and eating lunch with Marcus's babysitter, whose very presence he resents. The only thing missing is his dad, who stayed behind in Stockholm. When Marcus came out as a trans boy, his dad didn't take it well -- and now he worries that telling Mikkel might mean losing him, too. Jagerfeld is a master of quirky character details, from Marcus's dad's bicycling "diaper" (really cushioned bike shorts) to his mom's nude mime routine. Narrator Marcus's observations are laugh-out-loud funny and sometimes wise, as he reflects on his experiences as a trans person with confidence that no one knows his identity better than him. The trans storyline covers familiar ground, but Marcus's thoughts about his identity and the pain he feels in the face of rejection are movingly and satisfyingly portrayed.
Reviewer: Bodie Shanis | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2024

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