This board book takes readers on a journey through the colors of the LGBTQ Pride flag and the meanings behind those colors. “Purple is for spirit,” for example. “Spirit means listening to your heart. You are unique, important, and one-of-a-kind!”
While there are already several similar books about the colors of the Pride flag (Pride Colors, Our Rainbow, Kevin Keller’s Favorite Colors, Rainbow: A First Book of Pride), this one is notable for its visible inclusion of gender creative and trans people, including two images of children who appear to be gender creative boys, wearing skirts/dresses (although their actual genders are not specified), and the image of a woman in a dress striped in the colors of the trans flag, presumably a trans woman herself. There is also a note at the end about several variations of the rainbow flag, including Gilbert Baker’s original eight-color design, the Philadelphia Pride flag with brown and black, and the Progress Pride flag created by Daniel Quasar.
The brown and black stripes are discussed in the main text, too, where it says that “Brown is for inclusivity” and “Black is for diversity.” Only in the back matter do we learn the actual original meaning of these colors, “to celebrate and support people of color in the LGBTQIA+ community.” This book gets partial credit for including that meaning somewhere, though I wish it were in the main pages about those colors. General inclusivity and diversity are all well and good, but the stripes were created specifically to honor people of color.
The illustrations are both cheery and warm, showing a wide range of children and adults across many aspects of identity.
