Now that Sophia is out of school for the summer, our weekly library trip has become more important. Especially for me. I need to get out of the house! I love our local library. The librarians are so sweet and patient with Sophia. Whenever Sophia asks me a question I can’t answer, we ask the librarian for a book on the subject. We also randomly walk around a pick up new to us books.
Our most recent find is Shades of People by Shelley Rotner and Sheila M Kelly. I first thought of Jaxson when I picked it up. He’s in the stage where he’s fascinated by faces, in person and in print.
The three of us read the book together-actually Jaxson tried to eat the book mostly. Sophia was drawn in to the pictures of all the children. They are happy. There are children hugging each other, reading together, playing together.
With each picture, is a description of the person’s skin color. The lists of colors sound luscious to my earns as I read them to Sophia. Race is never mentioned in the book. It starts
Have you noticed that people come in many different shades? Not colors, exactly, but shades…There’s creamy, ivory, sandy, and peach, coffee, cocoa, copper and tan.
I can totally hear Maya Angelou voice in my head as I read the words. Sophia excited pointed out the colors that matched our family members. “I’m coffee and so is Jaxson!” “Mommy, you’re gold and daddy is coffee.”
My favorite page reads: Even in the same family there can be many shades and is accompanied by multiracial families. Be still my heart!
Shades of People celebrates how fun it is that we’re all different shades. I’m so glad to have discovered it at the library. I think we need our own copy.
This is not a compensated review. I borrowed the book from my county library. The above links are Amazon affiliate links.
Thank you so much for this review. My son is not biracial, but he is a blond-haired, blue-eyed child of Americans growing up in South Korea. He is just starting to notice (he's 2) that he doesn't look like anyone else. I'm going to order this book.