Customer Reviews

Shades of People

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

There are all kinds of people, but have you ever noticed how many different "shades" there are? "Not colors, exactly, but shades." If you look through the pages of this book there are many different children of all shades. You can see creamy, ivory, sandy, peach, coffee, cocoa, copper, tan, pink, rose, almond, "shades of gold," bronze and brown. Some people range from very light to very dark and "you can't tell what someone is like from the color of their skin." Some families have many different shades. Just take a look around you and think about all the different shades that you can see. Perhaps you can find a child in this book who has the same shade as you do!

This is a very simple, yet beautiful book with a powerful message. Each page has at least one full color photograph while a few have several. There are many lovely children's faces of many different shades, but they all have one thing in common and that is the fact that they are little human beings. The photographs were very professional and the minimal dialogue compliments them nicely. I think this is one book that won't become "dated" and would be a great addition to any shelf of any shade!

I bought this book for my five year old son who has just started noticing the different races. The pictures are great and the way they describe skin like wrapping paper really helped him understand.

This is a great book that begins the conversation on differences. The photography is beautiful and invites all types of individuals into the discussion.

As a preschool teacher, I'm required to present and expose my children to multi-ethnic and multi-cultural coponents. I love this book because it helps me illustrate to my 4s and 5s that we are different but alike. The photos are big, vibrant and colorful and show how we're different [eye colors, skin colors, etc] but are alike [we have eyes, nose, mouth, hair, like to play, ect]. It's a must for any preschool teacher, people who work with young children and people who teach tolerance and acceptance of others.

Shades of People, published in 2009, is a fantastic introduction of the diverse skin tones of people. Typically at around three years of age, children begin to notice that not all people look alike. Because children love to look at other children, this book is a great way to introduce conversation about one major difference - skin tone.

Over fifty photographs of real children of various ethnic backgrounds and in shades ranging from "ivory" to "very dark" adorn the pages of this Scholastic book by Shelley Rotner and Sheila M. Kelly. Children are described as creamy, sandy, copper, cocoa, almond and rose. Because the authors focus on the word shades rather than colors, they evoke the idea that all people belong to the same color scale, but land in different areas of that scale, thus drawing attention to what people have in common as well as their differences.

I love that all the pictures show happy children. Sometimes they are alone or with one or many friends. Sometimes they are with their family members who may or may not be the same shade. The book also includes mixed families and adoptive families to show that you can't even tell about a person's family by merely looking at them.

The authors' comparison of skin to wrapping paper is appropriate for children and really helps my preschoolers understand that skin is just a covering. After reading this book, we hard boiled a brown egg and a white egg. We talked about how they are the same and different on the outside. Then we peeled them both and discussed what we saw on the inside. We had a great discussion about skin as a covering for the inside of the body. That led to questions about how we don't think the same even though our muscles and bones are made the same. It's amazing how even young children understand that although our physical makeup is the same as other human beings' makeup, we have different personalities!

The book mentions places where we are more likely to see a variety of shades of people, such as the beach, the park and especially the city. And of course there are pictures to accompany each place mentioned. The last line reads, "In the world, there's light and dark, and everything in between." This book does a great job of documenting all those shades in photographs and celebrating the differences among people.

Beautiful images and easily understood content by my 3 year old! He had been asking questions about why certain people had different colored skin and this really helped!

This is a favorite of the two young ladies who received it for Christmas: one is 2 years old and the other is 10 months old. On behalf of them, it is great!

As a school counselor, honoring and teaching diversity to students is so important. Books that celebrate differences are a useful way to reach out to kids. If you are not reading books like these...start! Teaching students about diversity helps reduce conflict and bullying. I'm a huge believer in this. Shades of People is going to help me break down those walls, hopefully before they even go up. The author chose to use the word 'shades' instead of 'colors.' That was new language for younger students regarding their thoughts about skin color. They were able to apply those words in a really caring way towards themselves and others. Um, love it! The actual photographs of kids was also a hit, because it feels relateable. You are going to want this one for your shelf.

This book is an asset to any children's collection. However, I think in an effort to keep it simple, one important type of skin is omitted however, kids with freckles. Since freckled people have two colors this could have been used to make the point nicely.