Hello Fellow Juju Lovers!
Can you believe Juju is approaching 18-months?!
I cannot get enough of watching him grow into his personality and start to develop personal interests.
I am an avid reader. Before Juju even came into the world, his bookshelf was stacked with books. While they aren’t the first item he gravitates towards in a room, slowly but surely they are getting and keeping his attention for much longer than they ever have.
A mom in one of my groups on Facebook was looking for books featuring positive images of dark skinned black characters. I search far and wide for books by black authors and with black and brown characters to line Juju’s bookshelf with. Why? So that Juju can see himself represented in popular stories, that’s why! After seeing that post, I was prompted to compile a list of our favorite books for brown kiddos! Don’t have a brown kiddo? No problem! Normalizing the black experience is important so its also a great idea to purchase these books for kids of any color!
So without further ado…
Juju's Favorite Books Featuring Brown Characters!
*Some of the links featured in this blog are from affiliates who compensate me. However, this does not influence my evaluations. All opinions are my own.*
Brown Boy Brown Boy What Can You Be?
This is a cute story with simple rhymes that Juju really loves. The illustrations are a great talking point to review words and sounds with your little reader.
This book exhibits great images of a strong father and son relationship. It also promotes themes of positive male masculinity. Added bonus that it tackles risk taking and establishing trust.
This is a book we have been waiting to get our hands on. Brought to us by Hollywood It Girl, Lupita N’yongo and illustrated by Vashti Harrison. This book dives head first into colorism in an easy to digest kid-friendly format.
Written by Taye Diggs, this is another book that perfectly deals with instilling a sense of pride in ones skin color. It features characters displaying a healthy attitude towards being a beautiful chocolate kid!
We are nearing potty training age so I had to go on a hunt for a potty training book featuring black characters. And this is the only one I found.
These all look like such good books. I’ve only heard of one. I’m definitely strong on my kids reading daily. I will have to look into these.
I think your kids will like them all no matter their ages!
My daughter have a few of these books and I probably go ahead and pick up some of these that she doesn’t have. Thanks for sharing!
You won’t regret adding any of these!
I’ve been looking to get some books on colorism. While I want the books that talk about dark skin love, I also want some that talk about being light skin and feeling like they are black and not othered. Does Brown Boy happen to touch on that, or have you come across any that do?
I like “I’m a Pretty Little Black girl”. The main character has a bunch of friends of all skin tones!
Here is a link: https://amzn.to/30nXs3U
This is such a good list!! I think i am going to get “Chocolate Me’ for my baby!!! Thank you s much for sharing this because I have never heard of some of these.
You are very welcome!
Thank you for sharing these reads! I don’t have any kids yet but I am always buy books for family and friends with kids. I haven’t read any of these books, but I definitely have to buy some of them.
Books are great gifts! I always give books for the little ones in my life.