Updated
Picture books about skin color. Some celebrate every shade, and a few deal head-on with being treated differently for being darker, which many South Asian kids hear about at home.
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Sulwe
Lupita Nyong'o
Sulwe's skin is darker than everyone in her family, and she wishes it were lighter, until a story about Night and Day changes her mind.
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I Am Brown
Ashok Banker
Brown-skinned kids around the world doing every kind of thing. I am brown. I am beautiful.
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Brown: The Many Shades of Love
Nancy Johnson James
A rhyming picture book about the many browns in one family and neighborhood.
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The Colors of Us
Karen Katz
Lena wants to paint herself brown, and her mother shows her there are many browns: cinnamon, chocolate, honey.
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Skin Like Mine
LaTashia M. Perry
Kids compare their skin to foods they love. Funny and short.
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Shades of People
Shelley Rotner and Sheila M. Kelly
Photographs of kids in all shades, and the point that skin color is just the outside.
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All the Colors We Are
Katie Kissinger
Explains for kids where skin color comes from: parents, the sun and melanin. In English and Spanish.
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The Skin You Live In
Michael Tyler
A rhyming book about all kinds of skin, from cinnamon to coffee.
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Chocolate Me!
Taye Diggs
A boy is teased about his skin and hair, and his mother helps him love how he looks.
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Our Skin: A First Conversation About Race
Megan Madison and Jessica Ralli
A board book that explains skin color and racism in simple words, with questions to ask kids.