Malathi Iyengar is a poet, writer, and teacher. She currently teaches at a public elementary school where she is happy to see lots of beautiful brown faces every day. Malathi lives in Los Angeles, California.

Jamel Akib is an award-winning illustrator whose work has appeared in several picture books as well as in numerous museum and gallery shows in England, including several Best of British Illustration exhibitions. A full-time illustrator of English and Malaysian ancestry, Akib now lives with his family in Salisbury, England.

"This exploration of the diversity within the spectrum of brown is a lovely tribute to the color." -- School Library Journal

"Brown is beautiful in all its shades of skin color and in what children see, feel, taste, smell, and touch everywhere. . . The joyful graphic details range from the ocher-brown mehendi design on an Indian bride's hands to an adobe home on the windswept desert. In a note, Iyengar remembers hating her brown skin as a child; her book shows how lucky she feels now." -- Booklist

"A joyful celebration of all sorts of brown-tinted skin colors." -- The Bloomsbury Review

"Iyengar's poetry trickles down in sweetness like golden brown honey in the sunlight and makes it clear, without protest, that brown is simply beautiful." -- Paper Tigers

Américas Award Commended Title - Consortium of Latin American Studies Programs