Milton now a restaurateur himself heads into the turmoil of the riots to protect the Zebra Room from

Milton, now a restaurateur himself, heads into the turmoil of the riots to protect the Zebra Room from looters. “The following morning as the smoke cleared, the city’s flag could once again be seen … A phoenix rising from its ashes.” Milton emerges from this second fire wealthy enough, from his over-insured building, to open up a hot-dog franchise.Daughter Callie is sent off to a posh girls’ school She plays field hockey, studies Greek, and falls in love. But while the crush might be explained as adolescent exploration, Callie becomes increasingly worried that she shows no signs of starting her period or growing breasts. When her feelings for her girlfriend confusingly stir the “bulb” between her legs into something like an erection, she becomes convinced that she is different.Callie’s parents are forced to seek the opinion of the famous Dr Luce: a thinly disguised version of a famous 1970s sexologist. Luce tells Callie’s frightened parents that gender-identity development is determined by sex assignment and rearing, not by the gonads. Although Callie is genetically a male, she must grow up into a woman.

The price she must pay for this is, effectively, a castration.The real sexologist, Dr John Money, argued at the time against assigning children with this particular deficiency to the male sex. A new criterion for clinical practice suggested that, in cases of ambiguous sexual genitalia, the sex of assignment up to the age of two and a half was the best predictor of healthy gender development. Switching genders after this age was considered an extremely risky proposition. Ironically, the real Dr Money and fictional Dr Luce seem to side with the 1970s feminist view that gender identity is determined by socialisation, not biology.When Callie appears in Luce’s office, aged 14, she is beyond saving. A few shots of progesterone, a snip and a tuck, and Callie would be rendered as female as she possibly could: “I was a living experiment dressed in white corduroys and a Fair Isle sweater.”Yet, when Callie realises that Luce’s treatment will denude her of her “bulb” and all erotic feeling, she decides to become the midwife of her own second birth. To become Cal, Callie undertakes a brutal journey across America, in which she is forced to unlearn everything she has learnt in the female sphere.Eugenides portrays Cal as a deeply sympathetic character: a man of vision and wit, who manages to overcome his own Greek tragedy.

Middlesex reminds us that those who fit awkwardly outside science’s categories of sex, desire and gender have much to teach.Julie Wheelwright is the author of ‘Amazons and Military Maids’. Legend has it that the first words recorded by Edison were “Mary Had a Little Lamb”. Though this historic moment couldn’t be included on Sparky’s Magic Piano, Tubby the Tuba, The Laughing Policeman & Other Children’s Favourites (Naxos, 2 hrs 26 mins, tapes £8.99; CDs £10.99), nearly 40 others are: Uncle Mac telling fairy stories; Billy Costello being Popeye the Sailor Man; Spike Jones and his City Slickers demanding two front teeth for Christmas. The perfect way of showing your children that things really aren’t what they used to be – though they may insist you keep it in the car to sing along to on your own.

Wilson’s stories are firmly rooted in the modern child’s world, and she excels at resolving familiar fears. After a horror video leaves little Micky terrified of dogs, his mother decides to buy him a puppy. Enter Wolfie the Werepuppy, and two hilarious stories.Toad Heaven(Puffin audio, 3hrs 15 mins, £7.99) is a welcome sequel to Morris Gleitzman’s Toad Rage, taking irrepressible toad Limpy in search of a land where toads are not squashed by juggernauts. Fans of Gleitzman’s pacy, wise and funny Australian stories will also enjoy Adults Only (Puffin audio, 3hrs 15 mins, £7.99), a compelling story of an only child who has the uneasy feeling that his parents never wanted him at all Imagined playmates become extraordinarily real. Gleitzman reads both audiobooks himself with marvellous energy.Gabriel Woolf has spent eight years abridging and recording Arthur Ransome’s novels for children.