Gender Blender (review)

Tom and Emma, caught in the grip of middle-school gender issues, now want nothing to do with each other. However, thanks to an assignment on understanding gender differences for health class that pairs up girl/boy teams, they won't have a choice. Then fate in the form of a cursed arrowhead intervenes, making the assignment less difficult but life extremely complicated when they wake up in each other's bodies after being knocked out. Now they must deal with each other's families and fulfill each other's obligations, social and otherwise. Emma discovers that being a boy involves dangerous pranks, a hyperactive emphasis on sports, and unexpected (and inconvenient) erections, while Tom gains a greater appreciation for the heavy expectations placed upon Emma and learns that locker-room cruelty knows no gender—though even popular girls will show you what to do after you get your first period. While great fun in places, this farce nevertheless relies too heavily on the very gender stereotypes it attempts to demystify, and the arrowhead with its concomitant love curse is a crude plot device at best, a cringe-inducing cliché at worst. More successful is the rendering of Emma and Tom's relationship, using unforced and colloquial dialogue to genuinely humorous effect. Though the book falls into some predictable ruts, fans of the "he said/she said" trope will appreciate this middle-grade exploration of the different expectations of behavior imposed on boys and girls and the way male/female friendships suffer because of them.