The Blacker the Berry: A Coretta Scott King Award Winner

This is a tender and grace-filled book. Very healing. Beautiful illustrations. A blessing for any child of color.

I've never read anything about the different skin complextion of people, although I have heard people speak of it. I was really impressed with all the poems and I could read them over and over again. And the illustrations were out of this world,just absolutely beautiful. That was a job well done.

Thomas, J.C. (2008). The Blacker the Berry. New York: Joanna Cotler Books. 9780060253752 The Blacker the Berry features twelve poems written by Joyce Carol Thomas complimenting different shades of skin color and connecting those colors with similes and metaphors of foods--mostly berries. While the actual content of the picturebook is far from tense, there is building in the sense that the final poem incorporates all of the children previously described. Issues explored through the poems include the ideas of `passing' as white, ethnic identity, connection to the past, ways of peacefully resisting negative perceptions, etc. All of these could become points to discuss with a class. This picturebook won the Coretta Scott King Award this year for the illustrations. The pictures feature African American children with a range of skin tones in natural environments, doing a number of activities, almost always smiling. The picturebook naturalizes blackness and presents as many different skin tones as possible positively. Activities to do with the book: Children could write poems about their own skin color and that of their friends and loved ones and create illustrations to accompany them. A lighter writing option could be to write about favorite foods and how people resemble them in physical characteristics and personality. A teacher can also use these poems for examples of images and metaphors. Students could also discuss the issues presented by the poems in class or small groups as well as offer their own narratives triggered by those discussions. Favorite Quotes: "Day couldn't dawn without the night Colors, without black, couldn't sparkle quite so bright" "It feels absolutely fabulous To be this brown Anyway, I refuse to walk too long in shadow" "We are color struck The way an artist strikes His canvas with his brush of many hues" For more of my reviews, visit [...]

Reviewed by Genevieve Chatel (age 8) for Reader Views (11/08) The theme of this book is that everybody is beautiful no matter what and that it is okay to have different color skin. Each poem is different in its own way and I noticed in this book that the author talked about different colors of black skin, like golden skin or coffee-black skin or cranberry black skin. In the poem "Skin Deep," the author mentions the line "Put yourself in someone else's skin" and pretend like you feel like that person feels. The poems made me really think about putting myself in someone else's skin and it made me think for the first time about how it would feel to be black. One of my two favorite poems in this book is `Snowberries.' And the line that I really liked in this poem is "And I want to be as black/ as midnight/ and moonless water/ So no words can wound me." The other poem I like is `Nightshade.' It says "I feel as purple/ As nightshade/ Of an eggplant/ That the great berry among berries/ Smooth skinned." I like the pictures in "The Blacker the Berry: Poems" by Joyce Carol Thomas because they looked like grainy old photos or jean material. Also, they look really life-like, and these pictures remind me of old paintings. The children in these pictures seem very happy.

This is a wonderful collection of poems about being different shades of black--all compared to different berries. I didn't even know some of these berries existed! Each poem comes in the first person narration of a child and they all have a great voice. A wonderful resource in the classroom, a great book for parents.