The Colors of Us
The Colors of Us is a children book written and illustrated by Karen Katz. Published in September 15, 1999, the book introduces a positive and affirming look at skin color from an artist's perspective.
Plot
Seven-year-old Lena, a budding artist, wanting to paint a self-portrait. 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 and sees how each person is a wonderful shade and different from all others.
"I am the color of cinnamon. Mom says she could eat me up”; she learns during a painting lesson that to get the color brown, she will have to “mix red, yellow, black, and white paints.” They go for a walk to observe the many shades of brown: they see Sonia, who is the color of creamy peanut butter; Isabella, who is chocolate brown; Lucy, both peachy and tan; Jo-Jin, the color of honey; Kyle, “like leaves in fall”; Mr. Pellegrino, the color of pizza crust, golden brown. Lena realizes that every shade is beautiful, then mixes her paints accordingly for portraits of her friends—“The colors of us!”[1]
The readers are introduced to Lena’s established world of friends and family, from the playground to the park, to the familiar pizza parlor to the spice store. She even mentions her babysitter and a friend who lives near the playground. Everyone Lena sees has different skin. She describes the varying shades with articles of food or some other item she deems exotic. For instance, while her cousin Kyle is “reddish-brown like the leaves of fall,” her friend Isabella is chocolate brown like birthday cupcakes.
Lena is fascinated by all the shades of brown that she sees, and can’t wait to return home to paint. The varying skin tones give her a deeper insight and well-rounded view into the many different cultures around her, free from judgment. When she and her mother return from their walk, Lena visits with her friends and then sets out her yellow, red, white, and black paints. Carefully mixing the colors together in different ways, Lena practices recreating everything she learned and recites each color name out loud to herself as she paints.[2]
Inspiration
The book was inspired by Karen Katz daughter, Lena. She is from Guatemala and is brown, a different skin tone than her. When she was young, about 5, she asked why they were a different color. The next day, when she went to her school, she was noticing all the children and how beautiful they were, and how many different shades of brown there were and she wanted to celebrate the beauty and the difference that these children embody. Katz mentioned that by having a child who has a different color skin and is from another country, you get to experience the world in a different way. Sometimes people would look at them and she could see they were trying to figure out who she was. She hopes that people take away from this book an opportunity to talk to each other about why people look different, and where they come from and who they are. It’s a springboard to conversations about many different ideas about race.[3]
References
- ↑ The Colors of Us. Retrieved on December 29, 2020.
- ↑ Robertson, Rachel (2018). “The Colors of Us” Book Review. Retrieved on December 29, 2020.
- ↑ Albert, Maddy (2020). ‘The Colors of Us’ Is the Perfect Book to Teach Your Kids to Celebrate Diversity. Retrieved on December 29, 2020.
