WHERE?

A child “straight from the center of the universe” faces a small-minded world.

The dark-skinned young narrator, wearing a striped woolen hat, fields the same question over and over: “Where are you from?” Words in different typefaces surround the child on the opening spread, and the protagonist pulls on the strings on the hat, seemingly for protection. The child wonders, “How am I supposed to respond?” Tumbling through a door in the clouds into a vast galaxy, the child declares, “I’m from the interiors of collapsing stars” and “the iridescent glow of a nebula.” The protagonist comes from the moons of Saturn and Pluto, from redwood trees and ocean tides, from voyagers and artists. The child continues even as others persist with the same question, which really means, “Why is your skin that color?” and “Why does your hair look like that?” But the child counters: “You see skin and I see supernovas.” Lesnie’s dazzlingly vivid illustrations immerse the child in a rich imaginative world, depicting lush green trees, rainbow nebulae, and luminous golden lanterns on dark water, in stark contrast to the more muted colors of the child’s real, harassed life. Though Collins’ reflective text doesn’t offer a simple resolution, the child nevertheless has the last, definitive words to settle the issue.

An unusual and inventive selection for beginning tough conversations with young readers.