Wandering Son Book 6

Reading level - 13 to 16 years.

Shimura Takako's sensitive and charming manga series about two middle-schoolers wrestling with their gender identities continues. Faced with unwanted changes to their growing bodies, male-identified Takatsuki-san discovers the wonders of "breast binders," and female-identified Nitori-kun explores the limits of his ability to "pass."

Also: the success of their performance of The Rose of Versailles in the fifth grade - in which the boys played the women and the girls played the men - inspires our protagonists to put on another gender-bending play for the junior-high school festival.

They riff on Romeo and Juliet. Nitori-kun and his friend Chiba-san write the script together, but Chiba-san has an agenda: She wants to play Romeo, with Nitori-kun in the role of Juliet. But Nitori-kun wants Takatsuki-san to play Romeo... Chiba-san forces Nitori-kun to confront a question he's been avoiding.

Are his feelings for Takatsuki-san those of a boy for a girl, a girl for a girl, or a girl for a boy?

Meanwhile, Maho plans a trip to the beach with her boyfriend, and Nitori-kun must chaperone. 

"Wandering Son is a delightful, quiet manga about a girly boy and a boyish girl.... This is not your typical gender-bender manga playing a gender switch for laughs (and fanservice); it's a quiet, subtle story of a boy coming to terms with himself."
Brigid Alverson

"Shimura balances a full plate in this story, all the while offering it with the kind of easy grace that makes the balance appear to be almost magical.... In Shimura s sympathetic hands, this manga is neither gag nor message heavy: both main characters, their peers, and their family members are credible and developed with enough depth that readers can think about them beyond the bounds of the book. ...[Wandering Son Vol. 1] belongs in every high school library, as well as in public collections that are accessible to both youth and adults."
Francisca Goldsmith"

"...Shimura Takako is a master at portraying subtle events in a slice of life story about adolescence that never feels didactic.... Like the storyline, Shimura s art is simple but nuanced.... As you d expect from Fantagraphics, the production quality for Wandering Son is excellent."
Anna Neatrour"

"What makes Wandering Son work is its slow-burn pace and calm atmosphere. It takes a delicate subject transgender children- and explores it slowly and carefully. Much like its characters, it moves at its own pace, easing the reader into the characters lives."
Shannon Fay