The book begins with a simple introduction by title character who appends an exclamation point to the end of her name. This punctuation will foreshadow the tone of the tale: it is the story of a little girl who is fierce in knowing exactly who she is.
She then gives some hints about that question by informing the reader that she can’t remember a time when pink was not her favorite color and that almost more than anything else in the world, she loves mermaids. She then introduces her two best friends, Samantha and Casey with accompanying illustrations showing the three girls dancing, doing cartwheels, and playing dress-up. The mood shifts a little, however, as her image stares directly at the reader and she confesses that she is not exactly the same as the two of them.
The reveal: she has the brain of a girl, but the body of a boy. This is a situation technically know as being transgender. Then, just to make sure some readers perhaps don’t continue thinking something ignorant that they learned from unreliable sources, she asserts that she was born this way and proceeds to offer evidence in the form of flashbacks to her youngest days of recollection.
When her mom would tell the baby she gave birth to that was equipped with a penis that he was a good boy, Jazz would instantly correct her by reminding her that, no, she was actually a good girl. The family reacted with confusion to this insistence upon her part since, according to all physical evidence and thousands of years of gender construction, Jazz looked like a boy. Except, of course, when she was wearing girl’s clothing. Which she did as often as he could. She also didn’t look much like a boy when playing with her toys: dolls instead of balls and crowns instead of guns. Eventually, her parents gave in and allowed her to wear dresses and other girly stuff at home, but insisted she dress like a boy in public. Not only did not make Jazz profoundly miserable, but it also felt wrong in a way that most people should be able to understand: it made her feel like she was telling a lie.
One magical day the world changed forever for Jazz. It was the day her parents took her to see a new kind of doctor she’d never been to before. Instead of looking inside her ears and listening to her heart beat, this doctor only seemed to be interested in asking questions. Lots and lots of questions. And all Jazz had to do was be completely honest and tell the truth. When she got done with her questions, she and her mom and dad learned a new word: transgender.
Learning that word and everything it mean caused her parents to change their mind about forcing her to dress as a boy whenever they were in public. In fact, she was not only allowed to wear girl clothes outside their home, but also to grow her hair long, Even better: she would actually be able to go to school dressed in the clothes she wanted and telling anyone who called her a boy that they were wrong and she was a girl. Unfortunately, telling some people that you are a girl when all they all know you were born with a penis is not enough to convince them. And so, the confusion first experienced by her family members spread to the teachers and other students and resulted in crazy rules like being forced to play on the boys team during gym class.
Eventually, the school changed its mind and Jazz became a soccer teammate playing with her best friends Samantha and Casey. Mean kids still called her a boy and tried their best to make her feel bad, but she remembered very important her mom told her: she was going to get a lot more attention than other kids at school because she was different from everybody else. And being different it not just okay, but actually pretty great as long it makes you happy.
