friday's five, beyond black and white

This past week, a friend and I conducted a storytime and art activity with a small group of children at a public library. I'm happy to be a new addition to an incredible group of volunteers working to present social justice-themed storytime events at our county's libraries, and this month's theme was Let's Talk About Race. This area to which we moved almost three years ago doesn't have very much racial diversity, certainly not in the way that my family was used to back in our old county. But, regardless of who would be in attendance, we hoped for at least a little bit of a conversation about why people have different skin tones and shades, what that can mean for people's experiences, and why it's important for everyone to find books that feature characters who look like them. It ended up being a pretty basic discussion of why people have different skin tones, with bits and pieces during which we encouraged the children in attendance to think about representation in books and media.

This week's round-up includes the two books we read aloud to the group, as well as other titles that we explored in preparing for the event.

1. Let's Talk About Race written by Julius Lester and illustrated by Karen Barbour

While I wasn't confident how this one would work in this storytime environment as a read aloud, I did appreciate the tone Lester uses in the narration of this book. He starts by saying that every person is a story, and in using that approach, his goal is to show young readers how people are alike in so many ways. I read a lot of criticism of this book in the reviews on Amazon, with many people noting that Lester seems to be advocating for a "colorblind" approach and not giving enough attention to realities of racism and bias. I definitely see this point. I still think there's perhaps a place for this book as part of a bigger discussion, not as a one-off read, and with elementary school children, the lack of this perspective can be raised and explored.

2. Shades of People written and photographed by Sheila M. Kelly and Shelley Rotner

This is a bit of an oldie-but-goodie picture book, but photographs of children are so often timeless in their spirit. With simple text and lively photos, this book presents a wide variety of skin tones among people and uses vivid language to describe the many shades that we can have. This picture book is appropriate for toddlers and older, providing rich language and real-life photographs that will appeal to kids of all ages.

3. Skin Again written by bell hooks and illustrated by Chris Raschka 

Unfortunately, I didn't get this book in through interlibrary loan in time for the storytime, but I want to include it here, because I think it does a lovely job of both acknowledging the role skin color can play in identity and affirming a love of one's skin color, while also encouraging young children to remember that there is always more to a person's story than just their "covering." Through hooks' poetry, children and adults are reminded to acknowledge the "me of me" inside each of us-- the whole story of a person that can only be learned through relationships and openness. Raschka isn't a Caldecott-winning illustrator for no reason, and his painted illustrations work perfectly with hook's poetry.

4. All the Colors We Are / Todos los colores de nuestra piel : The Story of How We Get Our Skin Color / La historia de por qué tenemos diferentes colores de piel written by Katie Kissinger with photographs by Chris Bohnhoff

We read this book first, and it gave more of a scientific explanation for why people have different skin colors, talking about melanin, the role of the sun and people's geographic location, and our ancestry. We talked a little about some of the language used to describe tones, like tawny tan, that might have been new terms, and across the top and bottom of each page was a spectrum of colored squares of various shades that could be skin colors. This was helpful in both the art activity to come and in encouraging observation. 

5. The Colors of Us written and illustrated by Karen Katz

This was the second book we read during this storytime, and it was definitely more appropriate for the younger kids in the group (but the one 10-year-old was quite gracious about it, and I think even enjoyed it!). I like this book because it's from 7-year-old Lena's perspective, and it encourages young readers to be observant and aware of the many different skin tones that people can have. Lena starts to notice that everyone seems to be some shade of brown. As a child might be wont to do, she makes comparisons to many foods or items in nature to describe the skin tones of the people in her family and around her neighborhood. In the end, Lena works to represent the people in her life in art, and she uses paint colors to make different shades of skin tone. This helped transition our group to the very same art activity!

Happy reading!