Beautiful You, Beautiful Me

Beautiful You, Beautiful Me is a story about a young girl named Izzy, and the day she notices she is different from her mother in many different ways. Throughout her day, Izzy notices things, such as the colour of her skin, or the texture of their hair, and, using metaphorical language, she points these things out. Izzy’s mama reassures her that, despite their looking different, they still belong to each other. Every time one of these things are pointed out, Izzy’s mother says the phrase used in the excerpt.

In one part of the book, Izzy comments, “Why couldn’t she look more like Mama? Izzy wanted to be mama’s kind of beautiful.” Although this book does a good job of explaining that everyone is beautiful in their own way, it is definitely a book where conversations about race will be needed to explain why the main character has these inferior feelings in the first place.

The illustrations by Salini Perera are simple and feature Izzy and Mama throughout their day. The colours used make for a warm environment wherein the bond between mother and daughter is shown to be strong. The message this book is conveying is that a mother's love is not influenced by looks and that everyone is beautiful.