Sulwe has skin the color of midnight. She is darker than everyone in her family. She is darker than anyone in her school. Sulwe just wants to be beautiful and bright, like her mother and sister. Then a magical journey in the night sky opens her eyes and changes everything. 

In this stunning debut picture book, actress Lupita Nyong’o creates a whimsical and heartwarming story to inspire children to see their own unique beauty.

I want to curl in a ball of blankets and hug this book! I want to read it aloud to every child I will ever teach. Through her real life experience and the power of tender storytelling, Lupita Nyong’o wrote a book that will speak to so many children!

Even though the story is told through the eyes of Sulwe, a little girl who wishes the color of her skin was different…the message of accepting yourself and all of the beauty you naturally possess is HUGE!

Children will hear Sulwe’s story and know the beauty that each of us possess and it is because of our differences that this beauty should be celebrated.

LOVE LOVE LOVE!

Lupita Nyong’o is a Kenyan actress and producer. Her first feature film role was in the film  12 Years a Slave, for which she received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress as well as multiple accolades, including the Screen Actors Guild Award, the Critics’ Choice Award, the Independent Spirit Award, and the NAACP Award. She has since starred in Mira Nair’s Queen of  Katwe,  Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Ryan Coogler’s record-breaking box office hit  Black Panther, and most recently in Jordan’s Peele’s critically acclaimed horror film  Us. Nyong’o earned a Tony nomination for her Broadway debut in Danai Gurira’s play  Eclipsed. She lives in Brooklyn. 

Vashti Harrison, author and illustrator of the bestsellingLittle Leaders: Bold Women in Black History, is an artist, author, and filmmaker with a passion for storytelling. She earned her MFA in film and video from California Institute of the Arts, where she snuck into animation and illustration classes to learn from Disney and DreamWorks legends. There she rekindled a love for drawing and painting. Now she uses her love for both film and illustration to craft beautiful stories for children.