We are color struck. The way an artist strikes. His canvas with his brush of many hues. Look closely at these mirrors these palettes of skin. Each color is rich, in its own right. Black is dazzling and distinctive, like toasted wheat berry bread; snowberries in the fall; rich, red cranberries; and the bronzed last leaves of summer. In this lyrical and luminous collection, Coretta Scott King honorees Joyce Carol Thomas and Floyd Cooper celebrate these many shades of black beautifully--From the publisher.

This work features twelve poems complimenting different shades of skin color and connecting those colors with similes and metaphors of foods -- mostly berries. The poems each convey, through the eyes of a child, the beauty of their own complexion and how their skin came to be that color.