Sulwe

Sulwe is a sweet picture book for young children about self esteem, colorism, and acceptance by Lupita Nyong'o. Released 15th Oct 2019 by Simon & Schuster, it's 48 pages and is available in hardcover (boardbook), paperback, audio, and ebook formats. 

This is a beautifully and sensitively written book for the youngest kids (Lexile AD580L, ~preschool-3rd grade). Little Sulwe is sad because her skin is much darker than the rest of her family and she is teased and wishes she could be lighter skinned like her sister. Her family, especially her mother, support and understand and help her love her for who she is, inside -and- outside. There's a short interlude with a fable about the day and the night being sisters which is engagingly told in terms that even the youngest readers can understand and assimilate.

The digital art by Vashti Harrison is *luminous* and so well rendered. Each of the pictures (all the pages are illustrated) contains small details which encourage readers to take a longer, deeper look.

Worth noting is that this book is being broadly challenged/removed in many areas of Florida (USA) at the current time (which is why I picked it up and read it). It will surprise exactly no-one that I am emphatically against book bans and firmly believe that if you don't want to read a book, find a different book to read. Most of the challenged and banned books, I can at least understand some sort of reasoning for the challenge. This book's removal truly baffles. There is *nothing* here to upset or dismay even the most conservative parent. 

I highly recommend this book for public and school library acquisition, home use, and gift giving. Sensitivity, representation, positive family roles, self-esteem, and gentleness are vitally important and this book has all of the above in addition to being wonderfully illustrated.

Five stars. 

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.