In reviewing the book I found kids that looked like they came from Latino, Asian, European and everything else that falls in between. There are no cultural references in this book, the images shown are of people who come from different backgrounds but there are no implications of a specific culture. The book uses shades to describe how different people are instead of using color.

The book Shades of People is a perfect example of putting diversity in simplistic terms especially for younger children. But it’s not one we’ll be revisiting when he’s older, so two stars it is. In the end, every other review thus far is universally positive so I feel like I’m missing something or maybe my son is too young for this book. That's fine to post to your Facebook page, but a little more professional imagery should be expected in a book in my opinion. In one instance the focus of the camera is on a brick wall behind the child, in another instance the whole scene is blue-tinted like we're seeing it underwater. This is from a complete amateur, but I found them distracting. They were, photographically speaking, unimpressive. Even so, he hasn't forgotten and will point to a child and ask if that one is 'coffee.” It took something he hadn't really remarked upon, and told him it was both important and remarkable. We almost immediately stopped reading the actual text to him and instead talked about what the kids are doing, asked him to find a child with glasses, a barrette, and so on. Kids learn what's important by watching us, and by reading this book to him I've just essentially told him labeling skin color is important. Because the book is busy labeling the different shades, he's now interpreted that to mean it's important to label shades of skin. It's had the complete opposite effect from what I was hoping for. One the other hand, this book has made my son obsessed with skin color. The book shows children playing in various scenarios, and talks about how people come in 'cocoa,' 'rose,' 'almond,' etc. On the one hand, I get what it's trying to do and like many reviewers I love how the author referred to people coming in different 'shades' rather than colors. I'm really torn on how to rate this book.

Shades of People by Shelley Rotner