I'm a Pretty Little Black Girl!

September 30, 2013
In this first book in Bynum's planned I'm a Girl Collection, heroine Mia isn't lacking in self-esteem: "When I see myself in the mirror, I twirl,/ And I yell, âI'm a pretty little black girl!' " Mia gleefully heads to school, where she celebrates her friends and their skin colors, albeit with an unfortunate reliance on food metaphors: "My friend Kia... is tall and tan,/ My friend Keisha is the color of pecan;/ My best friend Charlotte... is like milk in coffee./ Dina-Rosemarie is the color of toffee." Parod's digital illustrations hint at the girls' individual interests (Ruby sings into a microphone, Dina-Rosemarie paints on an easel), but Bynum's lines sometimes take puzzling turns ("Her dark eyes shine like marbles/ in a brown paper bag!"), and Mia's repetitive praise of her friends and energetic descriptions of her nightly habits (which involve more twirling and mirror-gazing) cause the story to drag. The message about having pride and confidence in brown skin and hair that goes "every which-a-ways" is important, but the chaotic narration gets in the way of its delivery. Ages 4â9.

November 1, 2013

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

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