Seuss - this morning on my morning commute, and then comparing my reactions to those of almost every other online reviewer, I once again have that strange feeling that I am out of step with the current zeitgeist. Reading Karen Beaumont's I Like Myself! - a self-esteem picture-book with both textual and visual references to the classic work of Dr. But too often, biases show up on the page and do no justice to Black children's brilliance and lives. Sometimes, white children's book authors portray Black children with respect and celebration (such as Ezra Jack Keats, in my opinion). Here's a great example of why #ownvoices stories are so crucial. As a non-Black person of color, I wanted to be sure that my dismay wasn't misguided - but found that another reviewer also found this book offensive. The implication that Black girls' natural hair is inherently "a mess" is racist and deeply damaging it regurgitates dominant cultural norms that devalues Black people's bodies and pressures them to conform to white standards of beauty. The part that stands out to me as particularly hard to read is the spread that begins, "Even when I look a mess." and depicts the young girl in bed with her hair caricatured into what looks like an afro (the hairstyle shown in this illustration is a marked difference from the dreadlocks that the main character was wearing before).
I could tell right away that this book's illustrator was white, because of his unfortunate portrayal of a Black child.
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