Author Scott Stuart’s third picture book about gender and gender stereotypes follows his earlier My Shadow Is Pink (about a gender creative boy who likes to wear pink) and My Shadow Is Purple (about children who are in various ways between the traditional gender binary). In this volume, a girl who loves to run and whose “shadow is blue” is dismayed by her school coach’s bias against girls, while a boy speaks up in empathetic allyship.
The girl protagonist doesn’t know what to do when the coach insists that all the girls must start the race behind the boys, even though she knows she’s faster than many of them. Then, a boy with a blue shadow speaks up, asking whether it would really be a win if he won without all of the competition there (i.e., all of the students, regardless of gender), and noting, “We don’t have to be good to all get the same shot, and we don’t have to be boys to show what we’ve got.”
Other children of different genders, with variously colored shadows, including violet and green, then chime in to note that they’re good at different skills—dance, art, science, music, math—and that everyone should have the chance to take part in those activities. If the girl is good at running, they say, “let her.” A final spread shows the girl lined up to race with other students who had previously been separated into boys and girls.
As with My Shadow Is Purple, I like that this story doesn’t just bust blue/pink stereotypes like some books do, but stresses that there are many ways one can express oneself away from this binary—and that there are even choices away from the perfectly centered purple. Children may need a little adult guidance to think about what it could mean that someone’s shadow is pink, blue, violet, green, or any other color—analogies are never perfect—but the book’s message that the color of one’s shadow shouldn’t dictate what one is good at or allowed to do is important and welcome.
The protagonist is Black, the boy who first speaks up for her is White, and other characters have a variety of skin and hair tones.
