Brown Bear : Brown Girl

I have been writing a big fat chapter of my dissertation on the role of race in developing curriculum--a lot of stuff on racial identity formation, racial microaggressions, etc. So this stuff has been on my mind a lot lately.

Tonight I read "Brown Bear Brown Bear" for the millionth time to Alexandra. She can recite the entire book with me and I love it. When we get to the page with the teacher she says, "Mommy!" and when we get to the page with the children she names off everyone from her daycare. For the most part, she matches the illustrations to the physical attributes of her friends at daycare. Leo, who has bright red hair, is the strawberry blonde boy. Iris, who has a brown bob haircut, is the little girl with brown hair. Caitlin, who is biracial Asian/White is the Asian-looking girl. Daniel, who is Hispanic/White, is the dark-haired little boy.

That is, until she finds herself. For as long as we have been naming the children in the book, we always ask, "Where's Alexandra?" And her response is always the same:

The brown-skinned kid with an afro.

Love it.