The Colors of Us

Another fantastic book to explain to our African-American grandchildren about different skin colors of people from different parts of the world. My Mom was Italian, and she had a different color skin than a lot of Anglo people, and this explains that also. This is a must read for all children...we are all the same inside even tho we may look different on the outside.

Great book for any kid! We bought it because our daughter is adopted from Guatemala and we are white. I have used it with my neices and nephews as well to instill in them a love for all the beatiful colors of us.

This book is fabulous! My 4 year old daughter has thoroughly enjoyed it. Her school is not diverse at all and we were having lots of discussions about skin color and types of hair as she is the odd man out. I bought 8 different children's books to address her feelings and this was by far my favorite.

This was an interesting book. My son had been asking about why people were different colors and I was hoping to find a book that explained it to a six year old in his language. It talked about the different colors of people but some of the relations were hard for him to understand. Like being the color of pecans, which he has not seen, so he still could not understand.

Purchased for my preschooler. Great concept, but not for preschoolers. Vocabulary is a bit too complex for that age group and book makes lots of references to items that preschoolers have no experience with (e.g. her skin is like cinnamon - if the child doesn't have any experience with cinnamon, the child will not understand or the adult reader will need to take extra steps to give the child experiences that activate the needed prior knowledge).

I was looking for a book that addressed the differences between skin tones and races in a subtle way. I found that this book perhaps drew more attention to the differences (called skin "yellow" and "chocolate") and also introduced some stereotypes (asian kid was named Jo-Jin; spice seller was an Indian guy named Kashmir).

At the same time, I appreciate the author's effort to create a book that she thinks would bring about equality, and the illustrations are great.

Ultimately, not for us.

While I get that this book has good intentions, it is completely offensive and stereotypes people of color. All the people of color in this book are compared to a food item. Most shockingly, a little black child's skin is compared to chocolate. I'm a preschool teacher and could not read this to the kids when children are beginning to understand skin color. It is not because we are covered in caramel or chocolate. Also, the white girl in the book is not compared to a food item... I wouldn't recommend this book to teach about diversity

I did not purchase this book from the store. I received it as a loan from my brother. The book is awesome. I am an Indian-American. I had been struggling to expose my four year old daughter to more brown skinned characters in the media. All her favorite books, movies, and YouTube videos had white skinned characters, and I had to look really hard to find good non-white characters that she could identify with. I was seriously considering starting to write children's books myself with Asian characters, when I received this. I tell you it was a godsend. My daughter loved it. She practically memorized the book by the second day. She knows all the different variations of brown now. When she colors people in her coloring book, she tries to do more brown skin instead of reaching for the peachy "skin tone" crayon that's standard with the 24-box of crayons.

My perspective as an elementary school counselor:

A couple of weeks ago I attended a lecture on Culturally Responsive Teaching. I walked away feeling energized about all the diversity books sitting on the shelves in my office. But I also made a pledge to buy even more! I've been checking out The Colors of Us from the library for years. And now I own a copy! If you have students do self-portraits....this is a must read beforehand. Do you really want them just reaching for brown, white, orange, black, and yellow or would you rather them mix colors so they can define their own skin color? I want kids to ignore all the skin color labels and be the generation that sets a new standard. It can truly happen if we take on this attitude. Hey, they are looking to us for the example. So I'm going to hold true to my commitment. This is a fantastic book and also goes great with The Skin You Live In.

I honestly don't understand how anyone could honestly view this book as stereotyping, if you do you have missed the point of this book. I was happy to find this book and read it to a non diverse classroom. I loved how the girl in the book loved and appreciated her color and all colors.. the fun way she admired the different tones and colors and that they were all beautiful. How can anyone focus on anything else

After a grandchild managed to embarrass her mother mightily with remarks about the hair of another little playmate, I ordered this book and a few others in hopes that having them read to her would educate her to the world around her which is full of people who don't look like her. It was a small effort and hopefully the book contributed a bit to helping her understand that we may not all look the same but we all can be good friends. She hasn't had a lot of exposure to "different" friends but every little bit should help. the store.com had a number of good suggestions for titles in the 3 year old age range.

I understand and appreciate the intent here. However, vaguely cheerful affirmations that "yes, people come in different colors, like food!" aren't likely to actually make any child more aware of diversity or accepting of it. Also, it's a little weird that in this "let's all accept each other!" book many of the other characters have jobs which are just a bit stereotypical of their origins.

There are better choices for young children. If you want to speak just about diversity, I suggest you focus on having a broad library rather than the same old standbys (with mostly white characters) and a few Let's Be Friends books. It can be more difficult to get books with non-white protagonists, but it is not impossible. If you've been having trouble in your kid with actual bigotry, I suggest a book that discusses this head-on - a good picture book biography or a picture book historical fiction would be more useful.

I love this book because it celebrates every skin color as a beautiful one. I have used it several times with my preschool students and it is a great conversation starter. After reading this book, I ask each of my students to think of a food that looks like their own skin, and they have a lot of fun offering each other suggestions. They love to think of themselves as something as yummy as chocolate or honey. To further celebrate the multiculturalism in my classroom, I like to ask each of the children to bring in one of the foods they thought of so we can have a party. It is a great way for children to understand and appreciate diversity.

I bought this book for my toddler daughter after seeing her reaction to some people that didn't look like her while on a recent vacation overseas. This book captured her interest from the very beginning. She quickly learned the names of the characters and looked forward to reading this book every night. A few weeks later, I was happy to see that she reacted differently and much more positively when she encountered people with "different colors than us". This book is a great tool for teaching young children about diversity.

A client of mine who is a kindergarten teacher recommended this book and we absolutely love it. Our family is a big melting pot and when our four year old started asking questions we wanted to be able to address them in a positive beautiful way... The Color of Us, is exactly that.

I bought this book because after my daughter started preschool, she got aware of her own family colors differences. I am from Puerto Rico, "white", daddy is from Haiti "black" and the princess is mixed with a huge family full of different shades of brown. One day she asked me why she was brown and I was white and pink. Taking advantage of the power of books, I ordered this one among others, and we have been enjoying it ever since. She has lots of fun telling me she's a delicious peanut butter, and daddy is chocolate. Great way to teach diversity! We love it!

We have 3 children, SE Asian, African American, and Caucasian. ALL 3 children, not just the non-caucasian 2, have enjoyed this bok for years. All of them hold their hands up to the hands pages, trying to match their skintones with the hands in the pix. What an excellent book, demonstrating that we are NOT brown, black , or white....we are a mixture/blend of many colors, peach, cocoa, caramel, light brown, pink-toned, yellow-toned ,etc.

it may show diversity but it also uses stereotypes. i'm not a fan of this illustration style because it just makes all of the characters look like offensives drawings of minorities in the early 1900s. as much as i want to give this book a great review, i can't because of this. it's just ok. 3 stars.

I understand the main character in the story is an artist, however, I’ve decided not to read this book in my class because I do not want my students to start associating skin tones with food or think that it is okay to do so. Luckily there are more culturally responsive children’s books out now that celebrate physical differences in an appropriate, dignified manner.

This book is a must have for diverse preschool classrooms. We used it in our preschool classes when we had some diversity issues going on with the children. The message is positive and encourages children to discover their own colors, and treasure our differences.

This is such a beautiful book. I readily give, "The Colors of Us," as a gift to family and friends. It has such a gorgeous message and gives adults who haven't had as much exposure to different cultures a way to start a conversation. I can't recommend this book highly enough. Every family should own a copy, regardless of race or socioeconomic status.

I was going along with this book until the stereotypes began to get more and more outrageous... the child's experience with a black person is her babysitter, with an Arab/Muslim is the man who sells spices; with an Italian is the Pizza maker.... OK as a black professional women whose child is at one of New York City's Independent schools I keenly felt the portrayal of the black woman in the story as a babysitter. Unfortunately this is the only interaction many white children have with women of color... the author should show some real sensitivity by trying to shatter rather than reinforce stereotypes. NO matter how you sugar coat it... it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

This is a wonderful book to introduce children to the concept of multiculturalism. I am white, my husband is Mexican and my daughters are dark like my husband. It is wonderful to see a book with a white mother and dark daughter, and it's wonderful to see all the different colored characters. My 4-year-old loves this book and I love reading her a story with a character she can relate to. I highly recommend it.

A great book describing differences in skin color in a positive and easy to understand way for a small child. My 3 1/2 year old loves this book and I've ordered 10 more to give as gifts. If only many of us adults had grown up thinking of people as "all the shades of us" (cinnamon, peach, french toast, cocoa, chocolate brown) instead of the labels of black, white, asian,etc.

I teach special education pre-k in a culturally diverse school. I think it's a wonderful way to introduce a complicated concept like racial diversity. And for the reviewers who said this book was "shallow" and "one-sided", let me say one thing: DUH! This book is written for small children who have not yet grasped abstract, higher order thinking. What do you expect 4 year olds to read? Alex Haley's "Roots"? Get over yourself--if you want a complex, thorough book on racial diversity, go get a college text book.

This book helps little children to understand the differences in skin color and culture, as a whole. I'm grateful that my granddaughter had this author's writing to bring an aspect of society and life into perspective at a level she could relate to.

I am an elementary school counselor and read this book to second graders. They love the comparisons of skin colors to foods, and it leaves everyone feeling good about the way they look. It is a strong multicultural book, but the presentation is very subtle, and not preachy.

This books paints a rather one-sided picture of racial diversity and children may be misled to believe that racial differences are just a matter of skin colour.

A little too sentimental really and not very educational or useful.