She watched with fascination as he took the book from her, opening its covers with immeasurably more reverence than anyone has ever approached the Ark of the Covenant with in any movie. Ever. He kept repeating incredulously that he had a book, that it was his book. 

And it was his book. And she watched him read it. Wait. Should she even call him a ‘him’? 

Yes. Yes, he was definitely ‘him’. In all her years of teaching, she had never seen a student approach a book with such unbound awe, wonder, and respect. No, anyone who held such esteem and love for paper, cardboard, marks on a page, and the wisdom and knowledge they possessed, that individual could never be called an ‘it’. No, he was definitely a ‘he’. A thinking, pondering, imagining ‘he’. 

But he wasn’t even human. Far from it. Yet he was still unique and very much still ‘he’.