Blacker the Berry--Joyce Carol Thomas

The Blacker the Berry features twelve poems complimenting different shades of skin color and connecting those colors with similes and metaphors of foods—mostly berries.

While the actual content of the picture book is far from tense, there is building in the sense that the final poem incorporates all of the children previously described.

Issues explored through the poems include the ideas of ‘passing’ as white, ethnic identity, connection to the past, ways of peacefully resisting negative perceptions, etc. All of these could become points to discuss with a class.

This picture book won the Coretta Scott King Award this year for the illustrations. The pictures feature African American children with a range of skin tones in natural environments, doing a number of activities, almost always smiling. The picture book naturalizes blackness and presents as many different skin tones as possible positively. 


I could use this book in my class if I had a very diverse group of kids by having each of them write a poem about their own skin color. 


Thomas, Joyce Carol., and Floyd Cooper. The Blacker the Berry: Poems. New York: HarperCollins, 2008. Print. ISBN: 9780060253752.