Rage, Hope, and Gingham: A Guest Post by T.C. Kemper

I like to joke that when I set out to write The Ginghams, the story sprung from a place of equal parts hope and rage. Especially as a recovering perfectionist! But there’s more than a bit of truth to that.

The Ginghams is a middle grade twist on The Stepford Wives, and though it’s not a direct retelling, it does take inspiration from Stepford’s pastel-toned social terror. In The Ginghams, artsy 12-year-old Joni returns home from summer camp to find her best friend–and all the townspeople she’s known and loved–transforming into smiling, dead-eyed, gingham-wearing “perfect” citizens. The cause? The creepy family that just moved to town: Mr. Gingham, Mrs. Gingham, and Charlotte Ann Gingham. Joni bravely fights back against their retro-styled authoritarian takeover.

The idea for this book came to life shortly after the birth of my son. In the sleep-deprived haze of new motherhood, I watched one of my favorite comfort films: the 2004 adaptation of The Stepford Wives starring Nicole Kidman. (I’m not really sure what it says about me that this is a comfort movie, but hey, I guess I crave campy horror when my weary soul needs it!). At the same time, I’d found that my social media algorithms had changed. Trad wife videos and “perfect family” content was being pumped into my feed with insidious gusto, and the parallels between Stepford and modern-day conversations around gender roles were impossible to deny.

But this messaging–the expectation that people, especially women and girls, should dull, change, or shrink themselves in order to fit some “ideal” standard–doesn’t start in adulthood. It starts in childhood, and grows louder in adolescence and teenhood. It sprouts when you’re forced to “fit in,” when your brother gets to play video games after dinner while you have to quietly wash the dishes, or when your school implements a dress code that enacts much harsher standards for its female students than its male students. It’s a censorship of self in a time when censorship in all its forms has been amplified. Couple this messaging with the latest wave of book-banning, and you have the perfect recipe for a villain in a social thriller like The Ginghams.

But there’s a lot of hope in there, too. I wanted to mix important, challenging themes with a fun, fast-moving plot, and the result is exactly the type of book I would’ve picked up as a kid. In The Ginghams, the book-banning, propaganda-wielding Ginghams are here to take over Joni’s town in a highly modern, deeply unsettling way–but they never counted on the defiance of a young girl and her friends. Joni’s brave, pre-teen heart guides her to take a bold stand, even when the stakes are high and her own doubt tries to get in her way. That’s why I love writing for kids: like Joni, they’re smart, they’re strong, and they tend to call out injustice even when the adults around them choose to stay silent. Joni won’t let the Ginghams steal her individuality, and she won’t let them win.

After all, there’s power in being exactly your imperfect self.