Carrie LaraReseñas

A young girl, the child of a mixed-race, bi-cultural couple, reflects on the beauty of diverse colors in this affirmational picture-book from Magination Press, a publishing venture of the American Psychological Association. Observing the beauty of the world around her, the girl-narrator then goes on to describe her parents, with their different skin colors. She describes herself - a mixture of her parents - and then she looks around at the diverse people who makes up the world...

I appreciated the messages imparted by American author Carrie Lara in Marvelous Maravilloso: Me and My Beautiful Family, and found the artwork from Italian illustrator Christine Battuz quite lovely. There is a clear didactic purpose here, as there is with all titles from Magination Press, but no more so than many other picture-books addressing identity, diversity and acceptance. Some Spanish vocabulary is worked naturally into the story, while an afterword explores how to have discussions about race with young children. Recommended to anyone looking for new picture-books about biracial and/or bi-cultural children.

This story is about the beauty of the colorful world. A young girl marvels at the beautiful colors in the world. She and her father go for walks to view the flowers and other things in nature. She comments how boring the world would be without colors to make it pretty. The story then transitions to how diverse people are in the world and in her own family. She talks about the color of her mother, father and herself and they are all beautiful. A wonderful book about diversity and bi-racial families. I liked the smattering of Spanish throughout the story. The illustrations were wonderful; simple, colorful and definitely added to the story. A wonderful book for schools. The publisher generously provided me with a copy of this book via netgalley.

A wonderful book that discusses the colors of people’s skin. That all colors are different and wonderful. That all families are wonderful no matter how they look, even if each member is a different color. A fantastic book for biracial families, or for showing biracial families in a realistic light.