Meter

Issue date: 3/2/09 Section: Arts & Culture

Media Credit: www.beautifullikeme.net

In a world where a person's physically beauty is measured by one Eurocentric standard, young women of color have had to look within to reaffirm their own image of what is beautiful.

Thanks to the efforts and creativity of TSU senior and published children's author, Kimberly Cheri Brown, the aforementioned young girls have another option in seeing themselves as beautiful.

With the publishing of her debut children's coloring book, Beautiful Like Me, Brown aims to reach out to young people and young women with a source for not only creative coloring but self-identifying exploration as well.

"The book is made so that people can not only color faces but learn about different cultures as well," said Brown, an art major from Huntsville, Ala., by way of Milwaukee.

Beautiful Like Me is filled with portraits of young girls from different parts of the world with spellings and pronunciations of their names along with bits of info about their cultures.

There is even an interactive element in the book as well where the artists coloring in the book can draw themselves.

"My daughter loves the book and I love that she enjoys it so much,"said Jasmine W. Scott a senior, mass communications major from Nashville and mother of two. "I was tired of her having to color and identify with only white little girls and princesses. This one helps her see blue eyes aren't the only pretty ones."

The concept behind the books came from a place that surprises Brown.

Brown realized the need for this type of book once she began coaching track at the prestigious and affluent private school, Harpeth Hall.

As she began serving as a cross-country track coach, she soon learned that she was not only the first black coach at the school but also not immediately accepted by the girls she had been hired to prepare for competition.

"One of the girls asked me if I ever wash my hair," Brown said with a tinge or outrage in her voice. "I knew then we had to sit down for a cultural one-on-one."

Brown, who currently wears her hair locked, said she had to take a look at herself and figure out a way to educate others because things like non-white hair and skin are rarely addressed.

The talk informed Brown that there were many people still uninformed about cultural diversity and she could be a person to take action. She then took the first step to making her book.

Continued...

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