ANYTHING BUT PINK

A pink-skinned girl falls into a funk when her golden community makes fun of her color in this bright picture book about embracing unique qualities.

Zinnia lives in a golden-toned world, surrounded by golden people. Being pink “made her feel extra special. That is, she loved being pink until her first day of school.” When her new classmates tell her that pink stinks, Zinnia starts to hate her color. Taking a cue from an old story, she sneaks down the Cloud Escalator on a quest to the Kaleidoscope Volcano to change her color. Along the way, she meets a green boy, a blue girl, and an orange boy who try to help her see her own special qualities. When it turns out Kaleidoscope Volcano can’t change her color after all, she realizes her new friends have the right idea. Using backgrounds that stick to shades of a single color to emphasize the bold hues of the characters, Catling creates a vibrant, eye-catching setting. Benthin’s accessible text, though dense on some pages, feels true to how mean words can change something children love about themselves into something they hate—and how kindness can turn that around. Zinnia’s friendly, outgoing nature and her self-consciousness make her a hero easy to empathize with in this enjoyable story. While there’s no good solution presented here to the bullying, readers will root for Zinnia to keep her cool when she returns to class.

An encouraging and engaging tale about the positive effects of kind words.