These pictures are different they are not like John Steptoe's typical art. The illustrations are all brown and some look faded. However, they all look very beautiful and different. The illustrations compliment the text in multiple different ways. The illustrations give you as the reader a different insight on the poems. ( )

I really enjoyed reading All the Colors of Race. It was a book that was brand new to me, as I don’t normally read books with sets of poetry. To my surprise, I loved all the different poems. I enjoyed the book the most because of how it is written. Each poem is written very simple, with short phrases. This makes it very easy to follow along, especially for young readers. For example, one line of a poem read, “Stop looking, Start loving.” I think that this book does an excellent job at proving a point, and letting the reading grasp the big idea, with using as little words as possible. The poems are free-verse, and don’t rhyme. However, they all have a rhythm which is engaging for young readers. I also enjoyed this book because of its message it sends to readers. As its poems consist of feelings and experiences of those with multiracial backgrounds, it is very relatable. For example, the poems have a repetitive theme of 'love yourself' and 'don't let others tear you down.' It gives readers a message of being proud of who they are, especially those who are uniquely diverse. I honestly loved this book and am looking forward to reading this to my future students. ( )

Summary: This is a collection of poems about a girl of multiple races. The poems tells stories about her heritage, who her mother and father, and ancestors were. They also talk about acceptance and why would it matter what color a person is. She explains that she is mixed race, and sometimes it can be difficult for people to understand but she is happy, and she believes everyone needs to “stop looking. Start loving”. Essentially saying that the color of your skin doesn't determine how much love you can provide in this world.

Personal Reaction: The poems were formed in an unusual way with big spaces, or single word per line, creating an actual abstract picture using the poem structure. All the pictures in this book were colored from black, shades of brown and gray and white. They were realistic and tied along to the poems. I personally only liked a few of the poems. Some were very confusing. Every poem had repetition. It was an interesting and different view. For me the non-rhythmic poems were strange and kind of unsatisfying. But this would be a great book to take a few poems from to teach about equality and acceptance in the classroom

Classroom Extension Ideas:
1) Taking the unusually written structure of the poems in the book, a great activity would be the blackout poetry/found poetry. Students will get a piece of paper that has words all over it, either a print out from a specific book or newspaper. The teacher will instruct them to use masking tape to cover certain words they want to use to create a poem. After placing masking tape over all the words they want to use, students can black out the rest of the page using paint, or color a picture or lightly paint/color over the rest of the page. Once the page is dry (if it was painted) the students will take off the masking tape to reveal their “Found Poetry”. The teacher will either have them share their poems with the class or can hang them up for students to read later. The teacher can ask the students to create a poem about acceptance, race, discrimination or any other topic the teacher wanted to use.
2) After reading this book, students can do a bit of research by asking their parents where they came from, where their grandparents came from and on. Create a family tree, and write the origins of all the people. This activity can then be presented by each student to show how different and alike each student is, and how equality and acceptance is important in all of life. ( )

I really enjoyed reading this unique book. I loved the way that the author shared the character’s story, feelings and emotions through poetry. For example one of the poems states “the only way I see any hope for later, we will have to get over this whole color thing……. Stop looking, start loving”. These messages from the author are so powerful and even more influential coming from a biracial girl as the main character. I also enjoyed the short and sweet poetry style from the author. The poems are short and some have just one-word lines, which is just enough to get the idea out to the reader. The story itself comes out to the reader more fluently and more influential when the author used little phases.
The poems are all based on the view of a biracial girl who is proud of her diversity and shares her feelings towards the races and the view of races. She spreads the importance of acceptance and love of everybody. ( )

I like this book because it is a book of poems about different races and how different people see each other and how people of different ethnic backgrounds see themselves. This book conveys these ideas through poems, which were dedicated to the author’s children who are from mixed backgrounds. I like this book because it gets people to look at themselves and be proud of whom they are.

I like this book because it shows people that if your of a multicultural background that people might view you a different way, like in one poem there is a phrase that says your on half black which is a conversation between two different people and the other person comes back and say your math is wrong one and one make two. This shows that the person that says the half black phrase only sees them as one race or the other. Another reason this is a good book is because it shows children that you should be proud of your background and culture. For example in the poems the phrases are saying it does not matter if I’m from two different cultures I am still a person.

I like this book is good for children because there are a lot of different ethnic backgrounds and races that children are going to be dealing with as well as having a good self image. Through reading these poems, this shows children not to be afraid of being different but be proud of who you are. ( )