Mother, I Want to Be Ziggy Stardust (224 pages) is a children’s book by prize-winning author Iria Misa about gender identity. The text is divided into seventeen chapters and is accompanied in the Galician edition by seventeen colour illustrations by Alba Barreiro.

Aine is nine years old. What they like best is to sing and dance. Their favourite artist is David Bowie. To do this, it’s very important to have the correct stage. When they can, they use the living room, which is on two levels; otherwise, they have to use and (jump up and down on) their bed. They play plastic instruments and use their mother’s lipstick to paint a line across their face. Sometimes it breaks, and then their mother gets really annoyed. The narrator is Aine’s best friend. He hides behind the curtain when Aine’s father comes to complain about the noise. Other children want to be firefighters or something when they grow up. Aine wants to be Ziggy Stardust.

The first time Aine wanted to be Ziggy Stardust was when they went on holiday with their parents to a large city. They didn’t like the city much and found tourism to be very tiring. The bed they slept in at night threatened to swallow them up. But they had wanted to go in order not to be left with their grandmother, so they had behaved impeccably in the months leading up to the trip. It was only when their parents mentioned the possibility of going to the zoo in the afternoon that their mood brightened. They are disappointed, however, when their parents take them to an exhibition. The exhibition is about a musician who wears different clothes, he’s a man, but he even wears a dress and doesn’t seem to be self-conscious. In one photo, he has red hair, like Aine. Aine decides, when they grow up, they want to be a musician like Ziggy Stardust.

Aine wants to cut their hair even shorter. Their parents refuse to take them to the hairdresser’s, so at the narrator’s suggestion, they cut it themselves. At dinner, their parents are horrified. Aine tells them it was their friend’s suggestion and even says his name: Thomas. Their father is even more frustrated to discover they have what he calls an “imaginary friend”. Only their mother, Fran, tries to be sympathetic. The next morning, she wants to take Aine to the hairdresser’s to do something about the haircut. Aine is so annoyed that they put on the clothes they’re only supposed to wear at home: camouflage trousers, a blue jumper with the drawing of a space rocket, red Wellingtons.

The hairdresser does what she can, but there’s no escaping the fact that Aine’s hair is now very short. At school, Aine explains to the teacher that their name is not Aine anymore, but Ziggy. The teacher is very angry. Their best friend at school, Lúa, doesn’t want to play with them. Aine is on their own in the playground when a boy from a lower year, whom the other boys call “gay” as an insult, comes to talk to them. Aine tells him all about Ziggy Stardust, but when they see the school bully, Xosé Lois, approach, they run away. Xosé Lois starts picking on the younger boy, so Aine throws a stone at him, hitting him on the head.

It is Aine’s tenth birthday. Normally they have pancakes in the morning when there’s a celebration, but there are no pancakes and their father is at work. Their aunt comes to help with the party. Only three friends from their class come, and their cousin Xulián. They play at being rock stars. There is going to be a family wedding, so Aine’s mother and aunt trick Aine into going to a clothes shop in a mall. They want to dress them in a certain way, but the only thing Aine likes is a sky-blue suit. When Fran refuses to buy it, Aine has a tantrum, and the shop assistant has to intervene.

When Aine refuses to wear the shorts and T-shirt their mother has bought for the wedding instead of the suit, their parents decide to leave them at the house of a work colleague and to go to the wedding without them. Aine is left to play with the work colleague’s daughter, Carol, whose favourite colour is pink and who has lots of dolls. Carol asks why Aine didn’t go to the wedding. Aine says it’s because they wanted to wear a suit and their parents wouldn’t let them. When Carol says suits are for boys, Aine answers that they are a boy. At this point in the narrative, the author, who has avoided specifying Aine’s gender, begins to use the masculine. Carol says when Aine grows up, they can be boyfriend and girlfriend. They try kissing, but Carol’s mother comes into the room and slaps Carol across the face.

There is a visit from Aine’s grandparents and uncle and aunt on his father’s side. They always look at him strange. Things are OK until Aine’s grandmother presents him with a doll and a set of brushes. Aine’s parents try to force him to say thank you, even though he doesn’t want to. He only cheers up when Thomas suggests cutting the doll’s hair to make it look like Ziggy Stardust. Aine is despondent to see an old photograph back on the wall, in which he is little, wearing a dress with ribbons and with long hair. At school, Aine asks the teacher for permission to go to the toilet, but is not sure which one to use. In the end, he goes to the boys’ toilet, but is followed by Xosé Lois and his two minions, Nucho and Tito, who call him a freak. They break down the door. Aine pushes Xosé Lois, who hits his head on the marble basin and falls to the floor unconscious. Nucho and Tito start laying into Aine, who is only saved by the appearance of the teacher, worried at Aine’s lengthy absence.

Xosé Lois is taken to hospital for observation, but his condition doesn’t appear to be serious. Aine feels that it was enough of him bullying children who were different. But people are only sympathetic when it’s a physical wound that can be seen; insults hurt on the inside. Back at home, Aine’s mother stands up for him in front of the family, refers to Aine as “him” and says they have to accept him as he is, otherwise they can’t see each other. “In the world there are lots of children this happens to. When they’re born, we say they’re a boy or a girl, but that isn’t what they feel.”

Fran and Aine spend a couple of nights at Fran’s sister’s house. When they return, their apartment is empty. Aine’s father has left, taking his things with him. Aine can hear his mother crying in her room, so goes to sleep with her in the same bed. He asks what he will do when he gets breasts. Fran suggests they may have to see a doctor. Aine feels capable of anything now that he can count on his mother’s support. After a few days, Fran wants to take Aine back to school, but he starts to have all kinds of problems – stomach ache, a persistent cough, a headache, etc. The doctor says it’s a result of anxiety. In the end, Aine returns to school to find that Lúa, his friend, is sympathetic and people are more understanding. Someone has been into school to talk to them about gender identity and what makes them a boy or a girl. Lúa invites him to tea the next day.

Fran and Aine go to see a psychologist, a “head doctor”, who turns out to be young and kind, not old and stern. Aine explains that he likes to sing and dance, he is clear that he is a boy, but others aren’t, and he has an imaginary friend, Thomas, who is the only one who understands him. He knows that sooner or later he’ll have to forget about Thomas, which makes Thomas, the narrator of the story, sad. At school, Aine’s class prepare to put on a dance. It was Aine’s idea. First of all, the boys will dance against the girls. Then they will dance in couples. The teacher puts Aine with the boys. And when they go to the mall to buy some clothes, it all goes much better than the previous time. Aine buys trousers and trainers.

But when they arrive at school for the dance, some parents are waiting at the gates. They don’t want Aine to dance with the boys. Fran decides that Aine will not dance, but only because this is their decision and she wants to help the teacher, Ana. She then leaves Aine alone in the classroom. The other children have already gone downstairs. When she returns, she is with her sister, Isa, who dresses Aine up in Ziggy Stardust’s pirate outfit. They then perform David Bowie’s song “Starman” on the stage in front of the whole school. The audience is enthusiastic, and Thomas realizes that Aine will be OK. He gradually disappears, this time for good, and Aine doesn’t even notice. He is being hugged by his friends.

There is then a short epilogue in which the author celebrates the figure of David Bowie, a “transversal artist” who with his characters, such as Ziggy Stardust or Thomas Newton, taught that it’s OK to be different, and who with his outfits blurred the line between masculine and feminine. Mother, I Want to Be Ziggy Stardust is a very well written text that looks at gender identity in children and celebrates difference. People have opposing reactions – Aine’s mother, Fran, is at first depressed or afraid, but then decides to come out in support of Aine in front of her husband’s family and wider society; Aine’s father, meanwhile, who is never given a name, is angry and prefers to leave. Also impressive is the way in which the author refrains from applying a gender to Aine for 100 pages (which is not so easy in a Romance language such as Galician) in order then to apply the masculine gender once Aine has said to Carol he is a boy. The author uses the figure of David Bowie to defend people’s right to their own identity in a book that was shortlisted for the Agustín Fernández Paz Award for Equality.

Synopsis © Jonathan Dunne