All the Colors We Are: The Story of How We Get Our Skin Color by Katie Kissinger

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Colorful photos and engaging content help children understand why their skin comes in a rainbow of colors.. [1]

Summary

All the Colors We Are Cover.jpg

This book was written in English and Spanish, portraying an easy-to-understand logical clarification of skin color. It emphasizes that we get our skin color from our relatives, from the sun, and from melanin. It clarifies that individuals with light skin have “not very busy” melanin, whereas individuals with dark skin have “very active” melanin. It clarifies spots, suntans, and sunburns. It poses questions for children to reply, such as “What color is your skin? What would you like to title the color of your skin?” and “How do you think we get our own special skin color? Can you make a guess?” At the front of the book may be a page with notes for parents or teachers, a note about avoiding the myths about skin color, and science notes around skin color. At the back of the book are propose exercises that are skin color related that parents or teachers may need to do with children. [2]

Celebrate the essence of one way we are all special and different from one another—our skin color! This bilingual (English/Spanish) book offers children a simple, scientifically accurate explanation about how our skin color is determined by our ancestors, the sun, and melanin. It’s also filled with colorful photographs that capture the beautiful variety of skin tones.[3]

All the Colors We Are.jpg

Pros

As mention in one of online site, this book tells about young children are curious about why people have different skin colors, and too often teachers are tempted to brush this curiosity aside in the name of a glib “We’re all the same.” The book is the product of Kissinger’s years-long work with children, and features valuable teaching suggestions to get children thinking imaginatively and unself-consciously about skin color [4]

This book showed magnificent color photographs and simple, engaging language capture the essence of one way we are special and different from one another—our skin color! Answers the "what and why" questions that children love to ask. Includes unique activity ideas. [5] 

It including photographs of children and adults from all over the world, with many different races and skin colors represented. The scientific explanations are easy to understand and some are repeated a few different ways. One page notes that if one parent has light skin and the other has dark skin, their kids may have light, dark, or in between skin. I like that the book poses questions to the readers to both encourage agency over readers’ identities and to support scientific inquiry. [6]

References