Black Is Brown Is Tan (Turtleback School & Library Binding Edition)

Adoff, Arnold

ISBN 10: 0613719506 ISBN 13: 9780613719506

Publisher: Turtleback Books, 2004

Synopsis

FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES ONLY. Describes in verse a family with a brown-skinned mother, white-skinned father, two children, and their various relatives.

About this title

Review:

Originally published in 1973, Black Is Brown Is Tan was the first children's book to feature an interracial family. In this 21st-century version, with new, sunlight-drenched watercolors, Mom is still "a tasty tan and coffee pumpkin pie / with dark brown eyes and almond ears," and Daddy is "light with pinks and tiny tans / dark hair growing on my arms / that darken in the summer sun / brown eyes / big yellow ears." The happy, normal family goes about their day, drinking milk, barbecuing, spending time with grandmas and aunts and uncles, and reading stories. Throughout, they celebrate "all the colors of the race":

black is brown is tan
is girl is boy
is nose is
face
is all
the
colors
of the race

This warm and loving story is just as meaningful today as it was decades ago. Readers from multicultural families, especially, will appreciate this tribute to the diversity of the American family from renowned poet Arnold Adoff (Touch the Poem) and Caldecott Medal-winning illustrator, Emily Arnold McCully (Mirette on the High Wire). (Ages 4 to 8) --Emilie Coulter

About the Author:

Arnold Adoff has written over twenty-five books of poetry for young readers, including Slow Dance Heartbreak Blues, illustrated by William Cotton; and Street Music: City Poems, illustrated by Karen Barbour, both of which are available at your local library. He is the author of Malcolm X, illustrated by Rudy Gutierrez, and has also edited The Poetry of Black America. He has received the NCTE Award for Excellence in Poetry for Children, and his trademark "shaped speech" writing style and his rhythmic poems have made him one of the most renowned children's poets of our time.

Mr. Adoff and his wife, celebrated author Virginia Hamilton, live in Yellow Springs, Ohio.

Emily Arnold McCully has illustrated more than a hundred books for children, including her own First Snow and Arnold Adoff's Black Is Brown Is Tan. She won the Caldecott Medal for her book Mirette On the High Wire.

About this edition

• Publisher: Turtleback Books
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0613719506
• ISBN 13: 9780613719506
• Binding: School & Library Binding
• Number of pages: 40
• Illustrator: Mccully Emily