“If pink is for girls, then it’s also for squirrels, because no one owns the colors,” begins this gentle, rhythmic book that punctures color-based stereotypes. “All nature’s hues are on the same team” it stresses, and the ungendered child narrator feels free to wear many different colors, changing with the seasons like the trees. There are no “good” or “bad” colors, and no one can assign them to be right or wrong.
While the beginning of the book dispels gender stereotypes, later pages also note that skin comes in different colors, too. If someone tells you that the color of your skin, clothes, or favorite things is wrong, the narrator advises, tell them about all the colors of nature, colors that also make up you and me. No matter the color—“Silver and charcoal, magenta or bronze,” or many others, “when colors are part of us, they’re never wrong.”
Bright and evocative, thoughtfully encompassing several aspects of identity that are often treated as separate.
