The Colors of Us
Books | Family & Relationships / Multiracial Families
4.1
Karen Katz
A positive and affirming look at skin color, from an artist's perspective.Seven-year-old Lena is going to paint a picture of herself. She wants to use brown paint for her skin. But when she and her mother take a walk through the neighborhood, Lena learns that brown comes in many different shades.Through the eyes of a little girl who begins to see her familiar world in a new way, this book celebrates the differences and similarities that connect all people.Karen Katz created The Colors of Us for her daughter, Lena, whom she and her husband adopted from Guatemala six years ago.
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More Details:
Author
Karen Katz
Pages
32
Publisher
Macmillan
Published Date
2002-10
ISBN
0805071636 9780805071634
Community ReviewsSee all
"Love opening the conversation of why we simplify black skin vs white skin when there’s no true meaning to that. Mine in cumin hers is peach etc. kids love this kind of “play” learning"
S B
Sabrina Bauer
"In this colorfully illustrated and equally collorful written book, young Lena wants to paint a pretty picture of herself and color her skin brown, but her artistic mother shows her that there is such a thing as shades, and that there are varying colors of brown. This book shows us what it means to be different but also how to kindly talk about another person using nice and warm words. I think this book is a great example of multiculturalism but also for learning to decode vocabulary for words like cinnamon, which are describing words in this context. I personally thought I saw a good attempt here at describing our friends skin tones, however, I worry that not everyone will enjoy some of the description, and we need to be careful of that in our classrooms. This book was okay in my opinion, not a favorite, but I love the artistic elements and vocabulary. I feel that this book is either make it or break it in the classroom depending on how the teacher is using it."
Brittani Roe
