The Courage of a Sissy: Oliver Button is a Sissy

Tomie dePaola’s picture book, Oliver Button is a Sissy, is the heroic story of Oliver Button, a young boy accused of being a “sissy” because he does not abide by the standards of his gender based on the ideological expectations of his peers, family and society. The Oxford English Dictionary defines the word sissy as being an effeminate person; a coward. The particular use of language used to express the book’s theme differentiates the subject from most books intended for a young audience. Identity and gender is a sensitive subject to a developing child of only six or seven years. The title provides the reader with a pre-conceived notion about Oliver Button’s identity. DePaola’s small book is only 6” x 8” and discusses the delicate topic of gender and identity in an approachable way. In Words About Pictures, Perry Nodelman states, “We tend to read smaller books expecting charm and delicacy – and to find it even if it is not there” (Words 44). DePaola runs the risk of writing a book that might introduce a child’s vocabulary to a discriminating word like “sissy,” or characteristics of a person that may be perceived as a negative quality. Oliver Button is a clean-cut young boy who wears trousers and collared shirts. He differs from his peers who wear baseball caps and sporting accessories. However, the author writes an emotionally effective story that shows Oliver’s individuality as a positive quality that results in the protagonist’s victory.

Because Oliver Button doesn’t like to play sports, his parents urge him to exercise. He begins to take dance lessons and because of this, Oliver is taunted by his peers. The bullies write on the school wall, “OLIVER BUTTON IS A SISSY” (dePaola). Despite being slandered by the boys and “hav[ing] help from [the] girls,” Oliver “kept on going to Ms. Leah’s Dancing School every week.” Oliver steps into the spotlight and performs his tap routine at the school’s talent show in front of a full auditorium. Disappointed, he does not win first place in the show. Regardless, Oliver’s triumphs over his otherness when he returns to school and finds the school wall’s graffiti replaced with, “OLIVER BUTTON IS A STAR” (dePaolo).

The glossy paperback cover is depicted with a frame drawn around the edge of the front and compliments Nodelman’s idea that, “Many picture books depict objects that act as frames on their title pages, like doorways inviting viewers into another, different world” (Words 50). The reader will soon enter Oliver’s world that differs from the stereotypes of young boys. There is a discrepancy between the interior and exterior appearance. Oliver is drawn center stage of the cover sitting within a frame. The frame within a frame is placed underneath the large text of the title. The cover shows Oliver painting a picture with blue watercolors, sitting beside a small, orange, playful cat. The cat reappears on the title page alongside Oliver who is dressed in an elaborate feathered hat and cape. This is the last the reader will see of Oliver’s cat. Perhaps the use of animals on the cover and title page are used as a manipulative mechanism to entice a child to want to read the book. The cat is no longer seen physically, but instead, can be found in a drawing that hangs on the wall. Even then the cat is colored brown, not orange. The pictures have a deliberately repetitive pattern of teal, white, green and shades of brown. There is no hint of the exciting blue and orange colors from the cover. In Molly Bang’s “Ten Principles of Design,” she notes that, “We associate the same or similar colors much more strongly than we associate the same or similar shapes” (Bang 76). The strict use of colors in dePaola’s book allows Oliver to both blend in with the scene and also be in the spotlight. Oliver pops out of the pages because of his attire against the contrasting background. During his performance, Oliver wears a white suit with teal detail when he performs his successful tap dancing performance at the talent show. As Bang says, “We notice contrasts, or…contrast enables us to see (Bang 80).

Oliver Button’s story is portrayed in chronological fragments. The absence of chapters and page numbers indicate that this particular story is intended to be read in one sitting. The linear narrative is visualized within frames. Although Nodelman argues that “a frame around a picture makes it seem tidier, less energetic,” the frames within dePaola’s illustrations are not tidy and in contrast, are drawn imperfectly and shaky. The framed scenes are drawn with a medium used mostly by children: crayons. As a whole, the book looks as if it was illustrated by a child and displays no element of realism. Instead, the characters are depicted to look like rag dolls. The frames consistently take up most of the page except for Oliver’s performance. When Oliver is on stage, the page shows movement and action through quadrants of frames. Because Oliver is trapped within the ideologies of the world he lives in, it is appropriate that he should be trapped within the frames of the picture book.

Unlike the cover that is filled entirely with teal outside of its frame, the interior framed scenes are surrounded by white space. The text is neatly placed alternately above and below the picture. The font is neat, perfectly legible and simple. Only one page is picture-less with centered text rather than top or bottom placement. Bang explains, “The center of the page is the most effective center of attention” (Bang 62). This page is significant, for it reveals important information and is the shift in the story line. On this page, the reader learns the reasons why Oliver doesn’t want to play ball: “He wasn’t very good at it. He dropped the ball or struck out or didn’t run fast enough. And he was always the last person picked for any team” (dePaola).

According to Charlotte Huck’s “Books for Ages and Stages” in her book Children’s Literature, dePaola’s book is appropriate for ages six and seven. The book shares characteristics that correspond with Huck’s standards for this age. According to Huck, children of this age have a “continued interest in [their] own world, [and are] more curious about a wider range of things” (Huck 47). Oliver Button is illustrated as having different interests from what boys of his age are typically used to. Instead of playing sports, he endeavors an array of creative projects that range from picking flowers, to arts and crafts and finally, performing on stage. Oliver endures criticism and remains unswayed as he pursues his passions. Thus, Oliver expands his world through exploring a “wider range of things.” More so, the book “Shows curiosity about gender differences” (Huck 48). According to the Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data, Oliver Button is a Sissy is classified as fiction within the category of sex role[s] (dePaola). Simply stated throughout the text, Oliver Button strays from the assigned roles that boys play sports.

The controversial content of Oliver’s story is enforced through its visual connotations. Based on the text of the story, there is no proof that Oliver has effeminate or cowardly qualities. Oliver is described to “like to walk in the woods and play jump rope…He liked to read books and draw pictures (dePaola). Oliver prefers to use his creative nature rather than athletic ability. Oliver’s soft, physical qualities are revealed once the story is visualized. The depiction of Oliver Button “express[es] our assumptions of the metaphorical relationships between appearance and meaning” (Nodelman 49). The use of a derogatory adjective such as “sissy” indicates a particular bias point of view before one can discover for himself the meaning behind Oliver’s persistence in pursuing his own hobbies rather than what “boys are supposed to do” (dePaola).

Oliver’s father and peers represent the colonization of a particular attitude of gender. While Oliver is singing and dancing, Oliver’s papa interjects, “Oliver…Don’t be such a sissy! Go out and play baseball or football or basketball. Any kind of ball!” (dePaola). In other words, Papa submits to the notion that in order for his son to be a real man, Oliver needs to grow some balls. Oliver Button has Nodelman’s concept of “inherent femaleness.” She describes, “Whether male or female, adults often describe their dealings with children in language which manages to suggest something traditionally feminine about childhood, something traditionally masculine about adulthood” (The Other, 30). The role of the father in a boy’s life is enforced and used to influence the development of his manly, paternal side. However, because Oliver does not submit to the pressures of his father and peers, his story is subversive. Oliver Button Is a Sissy “express[s] the imaginative, unconventional, noncommercial view of the world in its simplest and purest form” (Lurie xi).

The Library of Congress summarizes dePaola’s story in a single sentence: “His classmates’ taunts don’t stop Oliver Button from doing what he likes best” (dePaula). This particular story was published in 1979, a significant year for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender history in which multiple protests and movements took place all over the world. Appropriately for the age of its readers, Oliver’s effeminate qualities are intended to express the importance of individuality portrayed through creativity. However, the underlying symbolism can easily be picked up easily by an older generation lived through the events. It is ironic that Oliver’s dad should urge him to “play any kind of ball,” as it is possible for his son to fulfill his father’s urgency by becoming gay, using the word’s double entendre.

Works Cited

Bang, Molly. Picture This, How Pictures Work. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2000. Print.

dePaola, Tomie. Oliver Button Is a Sissy. Orlando: Voyager Books, 1979. Print.

Huck, Charlotte. Children’s Literature, Ninth Edition. New York: McGraw Hill, 2007. Print.

Lurie, Alison. Don’t Tell the Grown-ups: Subversive Children’s Literature. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1990. Print.

Nodelman, Perry. “Literary Theory and Children’s Literature.” Children’s Literature
Association Quarterly. 17.1 (Spring 1992): 29.

Nodelman, Perry. Words about Pictures. Athens: University of Georgia, 1988. Print.

"Sissy." An effeminate person; a coward. 2. The Oxford English Dictionary, 2010. Web. 8 June 2010.