The Color of Your Skin

Book excerpt: An entertaining yet creative way to address and celebrate diversity among young children. Like a multicolor pencil palette, what defines human beings is their uniqueness and their diversity.Vega and her colored pencils are inseparable. Together they create the most impressive drawings that are showcased in the best museum in the world: the refrigerator at home. Vega uses all the colors you can imagine for her drawings: red, yellow, blue, gold, and more.One day at school, Vega is immersed in one of her new creations when her friend Alex stops by, and peers into the box of pencils Vega had on her table. “Can you lend me the skin-colored pencil, please?” he asks. Skin-colored? Vega and Alex wonder why there is such a color in the box.With curiosity and creativity they explore the diversity skin tones of the people around them, and discover that the “skin-color” can have not just one, but a thousand shades.