Happy in Our Skin

by Fran Manushkin, Lauren Tobia (Illustrator)

Overview

“A cheeky meditation on the everyday miraculousness of skin. . . . It’s freewheeling fun.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Is there anything more splendid than a baby’s skin? Cocoa-brown, cinnamon, peaches and cream. As children grow, their clever skin does, too, enjoying hugs and tickles, protecting them inside and out, and making them one of a kind. Fran Manushkin’s rollicking text and Lauren Tobia’s delicious illustrations paint a breezy and irresistible picture of the human family — and how wonderful it is to be just who you are.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780763699727
Publisher:	Candlewick Press
Publication date:	03/06/2018
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	8.90(w) x 9.60(h) x 0.40(d)
Age Range:	4 - 6 Years

About the Author

  

Editorial Reviews

With plenty of sentimental books about belonging available, a fun angle on the ties that bind members of the human family is welcome...Following a light-skinned mother and her three children (who share their father’s brown skin), Tobia (Baby’s Got the Blues) creates an expansive, multicultural cast of urbanites enjoying themselves at a park, at the public pool, and at a boisterous block party. It’s freewheeling fun—a perfect book for the months when we all try to wear as little as possible.
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

The combination of lovingly humorous and detailed mixed-media illustrations and infectious rhymes will cause little ones and their families to pore over this book again and again.
—Kirkus Reviews

Happy in Our Skin paints a picture of an ideal world that recognizes the value of diversity and shuns color blindness—a positive message for ears of every age and color.
—Booklist Online

A delightful feel-good story.
—School Library Journal

From the Publisher

2015-05-12
More than skin deep, this rhyming paean to diversity offers readers an array of families of all colors and orientations, living and loving one another in a vibrant city setting. A giggling baby is tummy-tickled by her white and black mothers (or white mother and black father—impressively, the illustration leaves room for interpretation) in New York's Central Park in its summertime glory. "This is how we all begin: / small and happy in our skin." This celebration of skin not only extols the beauty and value of various skin colors, but also teaches the importance of skin as an essential body part: "It keeps the outsides out / and your insides in." Park, public-pool, and block-party scenes allow readers to luxuriate in a teeming city where children of all colors, abilities, and religions enjoy their families and neighbors. The author and illustrator do not simply take a rote, tokenistic approach to answering the cry for diverse books; the words and pictures depict a much-needed, realistic representation of the statement "it takes a village to raise a child" when a child skins her knee and many rush to her aid and comfort. Though her palette of browns is a little limited, Tobia creates sheer joy with her depictions of everything from unibrows, dimples, and birthmarks to callouts to recognizable literary characters. The combination of lovingly humorous and detailed mixed-media illustrations and infectious rhymes will cause little ones and their families to pore over this book again and again. (Picture book. 2-5)

Kirkus Reviews