One of my main goals as a kindergarten teacher is to help my students be comfortable in their own skin (literally and figuratively). Thus, every year we talk about race. To be more accurate, we talk about skin color. I am a big proponent of having this conversation with young children, because as research shows, kids notice it already. While many adults want to pretend that they “don’t see color,” kids already begin to notice differences in skin color when they are infants. I believe it’s important to discuss and explore our differences, instead of focusing only on how we are all the same. So every year, I teach an All About Me unit that includes discussions and explorations of our skin color.
To jumpstart these conversations, I read aloud many of the great children’s books that have been written about race and skin color. I decided to compile a list of the books that I find most helpful, because every year I go back to try to find them. I encourage you to read them with your students, or purchase them for your home! (And for more information on what we do after reading the books, click here or here.)
- Happy to Be Nappy by bell hooks
- Shades of Black: A Celebration of Our Children by Sandra Pinkney
- Chocolate Me! by Taye Diggs
- I Like Myself! by Karen Beaumont
- I Love My Hair! by Natasha Anastasia Tarpley
- The Colors of Us by Karen Katz
- Skin Again by bell hooks
- A Rainbow All Around Me by Sandra Pinkney
- Shades of People by Shelley Rotner
- Black is Brown is Tan by Arnold Adoff
- All the Colors We Are by Katie Kissinger
- It’s Okay to Be Different by Todd Parr
- The Skin You Live In by Michael Tyler
- Let’s Talk About Race by Julius Lester
- I Am Latino: The Beauty in Me by Sandra Pinkney
- Colors of Me by Brynne Barnes