Gender bender

This is a pretty funny book about two students in elementary school. Emma is an A student with an extremely complex schedule of extra-curricular activities which her mother has devised. Tom, on the to her hand, loves baseball but is still an immature male. Although he and Emma have known each other for years they fight verbally all the time.

The classroom teacher assigns a project on gender differences, where students are paired and they are to observe their partner and try to figure out what kind of gender differences (behavorial, social) exist.

Tom is using a trampoline when he's not supposed to, and Emma needs to use it. During the event they bump heads and end up switching personalities. The rest of the humor derives from having the male Tom try to get used to having a female body, and the female Emma trying to get use to having a male body.

It's not just physical stuff, though; it's how they are treated by other students and even by the teachers. They also have to deal with their “new” families. Thus, the two have a whole lot of improvising they have to do and a lot of fast learning (which is much easier for Emma than it is for Tom.)

There's one incident straight out of anime where Tom, now in Emma's body, is in physical education class. The girls are taking showers and when a girl he really likes takes her bra off and he sees her nude he faints.

The way each is supposed to act with their peers is interesting to read about, especially in relation to how Tom and Emma have to watch their own behavior and try to change their behavior since the peer groups they are now in don't function the way their previous groups did.

They try to figure out a way to change back and end up at a party where Tom finds out how nasty girls can be to other girls. One thing after another happens and the two aren't sure they will ever be able to return to “their” bodies.

A lot of the stuff in the book is very funny, and a lot is very thought-provoking. It's a good way to look at gender differences without getting tied up in psychological terminology and boring the reader to death.

Overall a good novel.

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