More Than Peach by Bellen Woodard

This week, I had the pleasure of working in a kindergarten classroom as they launched their writing workshop. I observed them learn to think of ideas and then write their ideas using pictures and even some words. Their teacher taught them how to think about the just right shapes they would need to get their ideas down. She also shared tools to help them think about using just the right colors. These tools included a wide variety of skin color crayons, markers, and colored pencils.

After seeing this work unfold, I knew I had the perfect book to share with these young writers-More Than Peach, by Bellen Woodard.

At just eight years old, Bellen noticed a problem in her classroom. Kids always referred to the peach crayon as the “skin colored crayon.” After talking it over with her mom, when asked for the “skin colored crayon,” she responded by asking, “Which one? Skin can be any number of beautiful colors.”

Bellen noticed this language catch on in her classroom and even within her school. With the help of her community, she began working towards getting multicultural crayons into the hands of more students across the world. You can read more about her amazing story here.

More Than Peach was a perfect read in kindergarten, raising students’ awareness that skin comes in many beautiful colors. This book would also be great to use during an opinion writing unit because it showcases a student who noticed a problem, dreamed up a solution, and made a change. Bellen is certainly a role model kids could relate to.