Buy the book @ Bookshop

This joyful book connects brown skin to beautiful things in the natural world: warm earth, rich wood, dark chocolate, strong trees. It's a love letter to Brown skin tones, and it does something really important: it gives children language and imagery to celebrate their own appearance. For all children, it builds appreciation for color and diversity in a way that is warm rather than clinical.

Discussion Questions

• What are some of the things in nature the book compares brown to?
• Which comparison was your favorite?
• What color is your skin, and what beautiful thing does it remind you of?
• Why do you think it's important to love how we look?

Skin Tone Watercolor HandsYour learner will trace their hand and paint it to match their own skin tone. This creates a beautiful, personal piece of art that becomes even more meaningful displayed together with others.

Supplies

• White or cream watercolor paper (cardstock works too)
• Watercolor paints or washable tempera in skin tone shades (or mix your own!)
• Paintbrushes
• Water cup and paper towels
• Pencil for tracing

Steps

1. Have your child lay their hand flat on the paper and trace around it with a pencil.
2. Look at their skin together and talk about what colors you'd mix to match it — is it warm? Peachy? Deep brown? Somewhere in between?
3. Mix paints together to find a close match. This is a great exploration moment — there's no rush.
4. Paint the hand shape carefully, staying inside the lines as best they can.
5. While it dries, write one thing they love about themselves on the paper.
   
   

Tips for Parents

• Mixing skin tone colors is genuinely tricky and fun — brown, white, red, yellow, and even a tiny bit of blue can all come into play. Explore together!
  
  

Extensions

• Mix paints to make as many different shades of brown as you can. How many can you make?
• There is also an opportunity to discuss making brown as a color. Mix all the primary colors together to get brown.
• Write or dictate: "My skin is the color of ______." Fill in with something from nature.
• Find other things in your home or outside that are beautiful shades of brown. Go on a "brown is beautiful" nature walk!