I'm a Pretty Little Black Girl!

PreS-Gr 2—This didactic take on black self-esteem and sisterly love falls flat despite its best intentions. In the morning, Mia looks in the mirror, twirls around, and yells: "I'm a Pretty Little Black Girl." Then off she goes to walk to school with her friends. In limping rhyme she mentions the color of each of them, describing how they play together and support one another. She says: "We come in all shapes and sizes…And like a special rainbow we're all different shades of brown." Then she adds that they are polite, because "'pretty' also means 'to show good manners'" and "spread love around." Back home, when she's getting ready for bed, she twirls in front of the mirror and calls out her mantra. There is no story here. The rhyme and meter are unsteady at best, and unsuccessful at worst. The illustrations are appealing enough in a cartoon, commercial way. The girls have oversize heads and large eyes; one of them is chubby and wears glasses. They wear brightly colored clothing, and there is extensive use of spot art, which gives the characters and story a real sense of motion. Karen Katz's The Colors of Us (Holt, 1999), Shelley Rotner and Sheila Kelly's Shades of People (Holiday House, 2009), or Karen Beaumont's I Like Myself (Houghton Harcourt, 2004) deliver the message more successfully.—Amy Lilien-Harper, The Ferguson Library, Stamford, CT