Black Girls: A celebration of you! by Dominique Furukawa, Erika Lynne Jones
Published by Harper on September 26, 2023
ISBN: 0063205319
Genres: Realistic Fiction
Format: Picture Book Fiction
Source: MSL Book Review
Goodreads

An oversized picture book filled with exuberance from its cover to the last page. Depicting Black girls with all skin tones and body types, this is a celebration of all that a child, a Black child, a Black girl can be. It would be nice to get away from heavily-gendered picture books, but since there are a plethora of books about “wonderful you” and “special child”, it is not a bad thing to center all of the talents and paths that a Black girl, one of the most marginalized of all demographics, can exhibit and take. And there are situations depicted in the book that don’t show up in a lot of picture books like a Black girl living with foster parents or shredding at the skate park. The rhyme scheme is often imperfect and a bit forced in places, but with a careful reading, it would make a decent read aloud. There was a missed opportunity to not include a page of back matter listing the Black female history-makers on the last few pages; all of them were recognizable to an adult, but since this is aimed at future innovators and influencers, it would have been a helpful and, perhaps, inspiring inclusion.

Reviewed by Jill O’Connor, Falmouth Middle School