Beauty is Mainly an Inside Job
Black Book News, Sept./Oct. 2001

The challenges that children must face, particularly during their tender, formative preadolescent period, are just as dramatic and significant for their future life orientation, as any that they might face during their years of growing into adulthood. As the African American community in general continues to face serious sociopolitical and economic challenges that often have broad psychological components, the need for well written, psychologically and pedagogically sound children's books that present young readers with models of resilience and self-esteem, is obvious.

Among such sorely needed books are Handsome Me, and Beautiful Me, two companion books whose main characters are a pre-teen boy, in the first, and a girl of comparable age in the second. Written by Wanda Thomas, a native of Harlem, New York City, and beautifully illustrated by John Higgins, these two books help prepare children to deal effectively with the negative perceptions that others project upon them.

Trevor, the young boy in Handsome Me, rises above a hurtful encounter with some of his friends and playmates. Rather than become a victim of his friends' insensitivity and accept and internalize their negative remarks about his physical appearance, he draws from his own inner strength and with a healthy and mature examination of himself reaffirms his strong positive self image with enough force to cancel out any negative or malicious words directed at him.


Similarly, in the story about Shanika, in the second book, Beautiful Me, the sensitive young girl manages to deal constructively with her friends' verbal attacks, when one afternoon, after the end of the school day, some of her friends and playmates vent their disappointment and anger at her because she had to go home early and take her skip-rope with her. To show their displeasure they gang up on her and keep calling her "ugly." As in Trevor's case, although Shanika is somewhat shaken, seeds of self-assuredness and love have been firmly planted in her heart by her parents and have taken root there. After taking a good, detailed look at herself, she rediscovers that she is indeed beautiful and can see that her friends were wrong in mistreating her. And what's more, she now knows that their thoughtless and insensitive words could not in the slightest diminish her real beauty and worth.

These are indeed empowering books. Young boys and girls will find in Trevor and Shanika truly healthy and attainable models of self-esteem that they can safely emulate. The two companion books by Wanda Thomas are making available to children the fruits of the author's caring and perceptive pedagogical sensibility, and they deserve to be wholeheartedly recommended to our young readers.