You Are My Favorite Color

You Are My Favorite Color is a book with an enjoyable, positive message of love from a mother to her newborn child. The mother explains the color of her child’s skin, and, in doing so, she conveys messages of empowerment and appreciation of beauty. The written text was provided by Gillian Sze while Nina Mata created the illustrations.

You Are My Favorite Color features a poetic written text. Sze’s mother protagonist tells her child she shares her brown colored skin with the “mightiest animals” including bears and oxen. However, the color also reflects the “gentleness of animals” including new fawns and flying sparrows. The baby’s skin color is similarly likened to the sweetness of cookies, whispering cattails, and the notes of a cello.

The evocative word choices are matched by highly colorful, heavily textured artwork that was created with Photoshop. Mata’s backgrounds consist of a predominantly cool color palette featuring blues, purples, and greens. However, these backgrounds are juxtaposed against splashes of reds, yellows, oranges, and pinks in the foreground action. This composition works nicely to magnify the visual interest in each illustration, but it also focuses the reader’s attention on the foreground details where big smiles are a feature of a loving family. Although the written text says nothing of the matter, in the artwork, the affectionate mother is depicted as having pale skin and, hence, the book’s framework in which the baby will one day ask why mother and child have different skin colors.

Although in this review I have identified the book as being for young readers and listeners, the reality is that the message of the book is suitable for all ages. Indeed, it is a message of love and peace that is suited to all people regardless of age or ethnicity. You Are My Favorite Color beautifully uses matters of diversity as a forum for the celebration of love and family.