How We Talk About Race With Our 5-Year-Old: Books and Resources That Actually Helped
The question came during snack time, with one hand wrapped around a cracker and the other holding a blue crayon. My daughter pointed at the cover of a picture book I’d just brought home from the library. “Mom, why is her skin brown?”
I paused. I’d been meaning to find anti-racism resources for her age for a while. I had a mental folder full of articles I never read, recommendations I kept asking other parents about, and a vague sense that at five years old, she was already starting to see race—I just wasn’t sure what to do with that observation. But there she was, asking it in the most ordinary way, expecting an answer like she’d asked why the sky is blue.
I didn’t have a script. I said something like, “Because skin comes in lots of different colors, just like hair and eyes. Isn’t it nice that we all look different?” She nodded and went back to her crayon. The moment passed, but it left a question hanging in the air: what does anti-racism actually look like for a five-year-old?
So I started digging. And at first, it was overwhelming. Most of the recommended books were about older kids, or involved topics like police violence and systemic injustice—important, but not something I could sit down and read to my daughter without understanding what she could process at this age. I tried a few longer picture books, and I could see her attention drifting. They were talking over her head. I needed something smaller, something that started with what she already notices.
The break came from a children’s librarian, not from a blog or a listicle. I asked her one afternoon if she had any books about skin color, families, and differences—nothing too heavy, just books that treated diversity as normal. She pointed me to All Are Welcome by Alexandra Penfold and The Colors of Us by Karen Katz. Both ended up on our coffee table.
The Colors of Us especially became a bedtime favorite. It’s about a little girl whose mother takes her through the neighborhood and shows her all the different shades of brown—cinnamon, peanut butter, chocolate, honey. My daughter’s eyes lit up when she heard “toast” as a color. She asked me what color her own skin was. I said, “Warm in the middle, a little lighter on your arms.” She thought that was funny.
We started doing a simple activity inspired by that book. We pulled out paper, paint, and a mirror. We tried to mix colors to get close to our own skin tones. My daughter mixed a very pinkish tan and called it “strawberry milk.” Then she painted her handprint, and mine, and then tried to make her best friend’s skin color—she said it looked like the floor of a treehouse, which I honestly loved. We weren’t teaching a lesson. We were just messing around with paint and noticing that people look different.
That was when I realized that anti-racism at this age isn’t about explaining structural inequality or even using the word “racism” very often. It’s about helping her recognize that people are different, that those differences are okay, and that everyone deserves to be treated fairly. The word “fairness” carries a lot of weight with a five-year-old. She knows when someone cuts in line or takes a toy without asking. So we can build on that.
I found myself using certain phrases more. When we read a book with a Black character and a white character, I’d say, “They look different, and they’re both taking the bus.” Not making a big point of it, just noting it in the same tone I’d use to say, “The dog is brown and the cat is gray.” It’s amazing how quickly children accept the world when you don’t add a layer of awkwardness.
Of course, not every moment is tidy. One day she said, “Her skin looks dirty” when she saw a character with a deep brown complexion. I felt my stomach drop. We were in the grocery store, and she was pointing at a cereal box. I knelt down and said, “No, that’s just her color. She looks nice, doesn’t she? And her hair looks like it’s in a ponytail, probably because she likes to run around.” I didn’t scold her. I didn’t act shocked, because I didn’t want her to think she’d said something forbidden. I just corrected the idea and moved on.
That was a turning point for me. I realized that these conversations are mostly about being calm and honest, not about having the perfect answer. If I make a big deal out of skin color, she’ll start to think it’s a big deal—and not necessarily in a good way. If I treat it as a normal part of describing a person, like hair color or height, she’ll understand that it’s just a feature.
I started moving away from books that were explicitly about injustice and toward books that simply show many different faces, families, and lives without making those differences the main plot. We read The Day You Begin by Jacqueline Woodson, and though some of it went over her head, she connected with the idea that everyone feels different sometimes. We read The Family Book by Todd Parr, which isn’t about race at all, but does have bright, messy illustrations of all sorts of families. For a five-year-old, representation matters, but it doesn’t have to be wrapped in a lesson. It can just be there, page after page, like a normal part of the world.
I also started paying attention to the way my daughter plays with other kids. She has a friend at preschool whose family is from Somalia. They hold hands on the slide. They don’t talk about skin color very much—maybe once, when she asked me why her friend wears a headscarf sometimes. I said, “Some families choose to wear that for their religion, like how some people wear a cross or a star.” She said, “Oh, it’s blue. I like blue.” And that was enough.
There are still moments when I have no idea if I’m doing this right. When she asks me why someone uses a wheelchair, I talk about bodies and help. When she notices that some people speak another language, I talk about how cool it is to know more than one. I’m not always sure what she internalizes. But I’ve started to think that being a parent of a five-year-old in this space is less about delivering a big speech about racism and more about being an interpreter—turning confusing or unfamiliar things into something that feels safe and understandable.
I’ve also made a few practical changes that have helped. I made a point of having a variety of dolls and figures at home, not just ones that look like us. I switched to a toothpaste brand that puts a Black child on the box, mostly so she sees those faces on regular objects, not only in a special book. When we watch a show, I don’t fast-forward through characters who look different or speak with accents. I let them exist as main characters.
As for actual resources, I’ve saved a few names on my phone. I like “Raising White Kids” by Jennifer Harvey, not because it’s a manual, but because it reminded me that the point isn’t to make my daughter feel guilty about race—it’s to help her see people fully. I also stumbled on a Sesame Street episode about skin color that had a short song comparing skin tones to leaves in a tree. My daughter was obsessed with it for a week. Sometimes the best resource is just that: a song or a book or a conversation that says, in a roundabout way, “Everyone belongs here.”
I don’t think we’re done. I expect this to be an ongoing thing, not a box to check. She’ll ask harder questions as she gets older. There will probably come a time when she tells me someone at school said something meant to hurt. Right now, though, I’m learning to slow down and let her lead. Some days that means sitting on the floor with paint and mixing shades of brown together. Other days it means reading a book that shows a busy street in an unfamiliar city. And sometimes it just means being ready with your calmest voice when a question comes at you during snack time, with no warning, and a cracker still in the other hand.
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