Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of bullying, ableism, and death.

The primary theme of The Thing About Georgie is that nobody can be defined by any singular “thing.” Through the growth that Georgie does as he works out his feelings about his unborn sibling, the novel develops the idea that individuals are much more complex than anyone can define. The phrasing in the title that defines the “thing” about people shows up several times in the first third of the book, usually framed through Georgie’s eyes. Georgie observes that “[t]he thing about Jeanette Wallace […] [i]s that she [i]s mean” (2), and “[t]he thing about Andy Moretti […] [i]s that he [i]s Italian” (4). The end of the first chapter answers the question that the title poses regarding what Georgie’s “thing” is: “[T]he thing was, Georgie Bishop was a dwarf” (6). This line defines Georgie by his disability.

Georgie’s “thing” is in direct contrast with his parents’ “thing,” which is that they are professional musicians in an orchestra. His parents’ love of music is written on his nursery walls in a poem that guesses which instrument Georgie will eventually use to join the family band. However, Georgie’s “thing,” his disability, makes it difficult for him to live up to these expectations. In Chapter 12, the unnamed narrator character leads the reader in an exercise to illustrate the difficulties that Georgie might face “trying to hold a violin bow with fingers like that” (101). Later in Chapter 12, Georgie acknowledges that he will never become a musician as he talks to the other orchestra members about what instrument his future sibling might play. Georgie is so focused on what he cannot do because of his dwarfism that he feels like he “d[oes]n’t even belong in his own family” (109). By putting his parents and future sibling in a box where being a musician is their “thing,” Georgie excludes himself from feeling like a proper member of his family.

However, Georgie comes to understand that people are more complex than just their “thing” with the help of Jeanie, whose initial “thing” is that she’s mean. However, the more Georgie spends time with Jeanie, the more evidence piles up that she’s more than just mean. This begins in Chapter 11 when Georgie discovers that Jeanie is the only kid in his school who checked out Little in a Big World from their library, showing that Jeanie strives to understand Georgie’s challenges and empathize with him, even if she doesn’t outwardly show it. When Georgie visits Jeanie’s house, he learns many other things about her, like that her mother died when she was young; she wants to be an actress, writer, or an obstetrician; and she has two older brothers who bully her and treat her the way she treats everyone else. Jeanie also demonstrates to Georgie that she isn’t mean in the final chapters of the book when she helps Georgie with his Abraham Lincoln part and defends him against bullying from a seventh-grade boy. Georgie realizes that “Jeanie the Meanie [i]s way nicer” than he’d given her credit for (206), which underscores that his initial perception that meanness was her only character trait was wrong.

In Chapter 24, Georgie finds the courage to talk to his parents about the “thing” he feels he is supposed to do. He asks whether his parents are disappointed in his lack of musical ability or would love him more if he played the violin. Georgie’s parents respond that even though they had hoped he would be a musician before he was born, “now [they] hope for bigger things: that [he]’ll grow into the kind of person that [he] want[s] to be” (210-11). They also say that they can’t know if the new baby will play the violin: “[W]e’re just going to have to wait and see […] You taught us that, Georgie, that you can’t ever know what to expect. We’ll just have to be surprised” (211). Georgie’s conversation with his parents develops the idea that people cannot be predicted or classified neatly because they are complex.

The author drives home the idea that people are too complex to classify as one “thing” or another in the final chapter by the unnamed narrator, who reveals that they are Jeanie. Jeanie, who had previously told the reader to write their “thing” down on a piece of paper, now tells the reader to tear that paper into pieces, saying, “I’d bet you a million dollars that for every tiny piece of paper […] there’s at least one other thing you never even thought of” (219). This exercise, along with Georgie’s concerns about the new baby and friendship with Jeanie, underscores the overarching theme that people are more complex than any one “thing” can define.