Skin+Again

**SUMMARY/REVIEW**
The skin I'm in is just a covering. It cannot tell my story. The skin I'm in is just a covering. If you want to know who I am you have got to come inside and open your heart way wide. Celebrating all that makes us unique and different, Skin Again offers new ways to talk about race and identity. Race matters, but only so much, what's most important is who we are on the inside. Looking beyond skin, going straight to the heart, we find in each other the treasures stored down deep. Learning to cherish those treasures, to be all we imagine ourselves to be, makes us free. //Skin Again// celebrates this freedom. (1)

**AUTHOR BIO**
Bell Hooks was born Gloria Watkins on September 25, 1952. She grew up in a small Southern community that gave her a sense of belonging as well as a sense of racial separation. She has degrees from Stanford University, the University of Wisconsin, and the University of California at Santa Cruz. She has served as a noted activist and social critic and has taught at numerous colleges. Hooks uses her great-grandmother's name to write under as a tribute to her ancestors. Hooks writes daring and controversial works that explore African-American female identities. In works such as Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism and Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black, she points out how feminism works for and against black women. Oppressed since slavery, black women must overcome the dual odds of race and gender discrimination to come to terms with equality and self-worth. (2)

**OTHER CHILDREN'S LITERATURE**

 * //Homemade Love (2002)//
 * //Happy To Be Nappy (Jump At the Sun) (1999)//
 * //Grump Grown Growl (2008)//
 * //Be Boy Buzz (2005)//

**HISTORICAL CONTEXT**
This visionary work by the creators of "Happy to Be Nappy" offers new ways to talk about race and identity, and reveals that race matters, but only so much--it is what can be found beyond the skin that's the most important treasure. Full color. (3)

**MAJOR THEMES**
acceptance, differences, identity, respect, race, multiculturalism, self-esteem, skin color

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2.) [] 3.) http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-078680825x-0