The Proudest Color: Adorable Story Book Giveaway
The Proudest Color is an adorable story book about beauty in the color of our skin and acceptance. It is such a beautiful story that it brought me to tears a bit, though I don’t think that is a normal response and definitely not one that children will have. I’ll explain later…
Adorable Way to Teach Kids to Love Who They Are!
My Search For Children’s Books
When we conceived our precious Acadia, one of the first things I wanted to start gathering were books featuring people of color. Since she was the culmination of multiple ethnicities: Black, Cherokee, Blackfoot and Caucasian, I wanted her to have books that reflected her. I’ve written about some of the racial bias that we experienced and I wanted to protect her as much as I could.
For me, and many other parents, I felt that the biggest way I could protect her was to prepare her with a healthy sense of self. I have a friend from our Pregnancy group whose doing an amazing job of teaching her Rainbow baby that beautiful sense of self. It brings all sorts of feelings watching her grow up, she and her parents make me so proud!
Moving on, all of that was to say that this book is a wonderful way to teach acceptance and normalize different ethnicities, even if the child reading it isn’t a brown skinned child. Too often, children are divided by the color of their skin. Not because of their own bias, but because they are taught improperly or not exposed to different cultures. The Proudest Color is a perfect book to help with teaching and give exposure to other cultures!
About the Book
The Proudest Color is a story book about a little girl named Zoey who sees and feels in color. That is to say, she sees color everywhere. Her moods even have a color. The book shoes a sense of love for all of her colors which correspond with various moods. Even anger, which is red, isn’t an ugly color or mood because it is okay to feel anger!
When faced with adversity, Zoey’s mommy and daddy remind her of all of the people who have done great things that are all sorts of different races that also have brown skin. Native Americans, Indians, Hispanics, Black, and Africans to name a few. It helps her to see that non only is her skin color beautiful, but also that there are people of color who have done great things.
For all children, this is an important lesson. It is easy to turn on the television or open a newspaper and see the majority race in leadership positions. Historically, it has been difficult to see brown skin in positions of authority. I love that we have been, slowly, making changes in that area!
The Proudest Color was written by Sheila Modir and Jeff Kashou and illustrated by Monica Mikai.
My Favorite Thing…
Okay, the story is adorable and touching. I love it! However, the story is not my favorite thing about the book. Inside the front cover are drawings done by Zoey of her life. Some with Mommy, Daddy, her pet, playing on the playground, etc. They are very well drawn and super cute depictions of a typical child’s creativity.
If you flip to the back cover, the drawings are different. The drawings are still of Zoey, but they are of Zoey beside famous people of color. With them, she is doing what they do. She’s an astronaut with Mae Jemison, a peace maker with Nelson Mandela, planting a tree with Jadav Payeng and so forth.
These are my favorite because it demonstrates how influential children are. When we expand their world, the imagination takes hold and truly soars. That, my friends, is absolutely beautiful!
Huge shout out and thank you to Mama The Fox for putting this fabulous giveaway hop together every month! It’s definitely appreciated and super fun! We really love it!
One lucky winner will win The Proudest Color from Familius Publishing!
Note: Comments won’t appear immediately as they have to be manually approved. Thanks so much to spamming jerkwads!
I think it’s really awesome how the main character thinks and feels in various colors. The artwork on the cover is lovely.
For sure! It’s such a beautiful story! I loved that she found pride and love in herself with her colors!
I want to read this good book to my grandson & granddaughter.
As an African American single working mom and teacher, I love books and reading and enjoy finding talented new writers. I’d love to share a book written for children to discuss race and racism .
Girl, I am stupid proud for you! When we got pregnant with our Acadia, I was on a mission to find books that would match her skin tone. I’m so grateful that they are getting easier and easier to find! Racism is such a hard topic to address with everyone, especially kids. I hate that it’s even necessary for us to do so!
Would love this for my little niece