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1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 Confronting The Truth Through The Eyes of A Child Jul 19, 2009
By Shirley Priscilla Johnson
"Author/Reviewer - Florida"
The star of our book, Selena, is the daughter of a couple with mixed heritage.Selena is a bright and beautiful child, open to the wonders of her world, but she is about to find there are some cruel things there as well. Selena goes off to school for the first time, bright eyed and excited to meet all the new children. However, she soon finds that some of them do not like her, will not play with her, and act as if she is below them and she does notu nderstand why. She comes home sad and confused, asking her father, am I ugly? How heartbreaking is that? Her father explains to her why this has happens and tells her that this may happen to her in the world, but she only needs to remember that she is beautiful and have confidence in herself to succeed.
Each day our world is getting smaller, races are coming together and struggling to learn what it means to share and to belong. Many are crossing race lines in marriage bringing forth children that some do not accept, sad but true. Our author brings this problem front and center, making it personal by showing the pain of the innocent. This truly is an issue we all need to address, we need to show tolerance one for another, we need to show love.
I enjoyed this read and believe it has great moral value for readers young and old. I would like to see illustrations put to this story and perhaps in the future our author could do that. I believe it would really pop this story to life, however, illustrations or not the message is loud and clear.
Well done.
Children's book, pictures not needed. Jul 14, 2010
By Shannon M. Mcgee
"Confuzzled Books"
William and Selena come from mixed heritages, which makes their daughter, Beauty, an extension of their heritages. As she grows, her complexion shows signs of their dark skinned heritages. When she starts preschool, Beauty experiences the first negative reactions to her color, but her father teaches her to love who she is and not listen to others' negativity.
Before I read it, I flipped through and noticed there are no pictures in this Children's book. Since it has as many pages as a children's picture book, I began to judge it as one. (I have always been a visual person and figure most kids are too.) I realized that I was judging by looks. but this was a story that didn't have art because its words were more important.
There was a part where the father explained to Beauty about her family's history, and I wish that the author had gone into that more deeply. The book has a strong message. There were a few sentences that didn't make sense and need to be worked out, but other then that the message is good.
Written for children on both sides of the ostracism inequality Jul 29, 2009
By Charles Ashbacher
Beauty is a young girl with a very mixed-race lineage, French, Creole, African-American and Native American. Her appearance matches her name and she is very fun loving and bright. Unfortunately, on her first day of pre-school, the other children used the color of her skin as a pretext to ostracize her, making fun of everything, including her comments about what her goals were in life. The teacher verbally comes to her aid, praising her preference, but that does little to sway the others.
The ostracism continues through playtime, the other girls pulled her hair and the boys ignored her for fear of suffering the same fate. Beauty feels so badly that she retreats into an imaginary world, making believe that a group of other children are playing nicely with her. Finally, after the school day is over, her parents talk to her about her ethnic heritage and how she must be very proud of what she is. This calms her and makes her appreciate what she is.
This book is written for children on both sides of the ridicule inequality, the givers and the receivers. It will help those receiving the ridicule to better cope with it, but even more importantly, hopefully it will open the eyes of the children that are being cruel to others.
 Has a positive message about acceptance, but would be better as a picture book Jul 23, 2009
By Z Hayes
"Her Name Was Beauty" by Deborah A. Williams is a heartwarming story about a young bi-racial girl, Beauty who faces prejudice when she goes to school. I assume that the school she attends is predominantly white, as it appears she is shunned by most of the children for being "different" and having a dark complexion. Sadly, though we live in an increasingly diverse society, such cases still exist. The rest of the story focuses on how Beauty, with the guidance of her father, learns to embrace her bi-racial identity.
Here are my comments: firstly, the copy I received was a review copy and as such, I assume all the typos will be corrected before it is published, for example, the word "descent" is repeatedly spelled incorrectly as "decent" in reference to racial origin. Also, the target audience for this book is young children and parents. I feel this book would have a much broader appeal if it was published as a picture book with illustrations. The story is good, but without visual enhancements in terms of illustrations, the story lacks the power to engage readers, and younger readers especially tend to favor picture books. The text is also rather too large which is ok if it is marketed as a large print book, but otherwise, I found the font size used rather distracting.
The story itself has a powerful message and for that I gave the book 3 stars, but it does need more editing and would benefit greatly with the addition of illustrations.
A Real Beauty Jul 22, 2009
By Sandra K. Stiles
Deborah A. Williams book "Her Nae Was Beauty" is the story of a multiracial girl who is taunted and ignored at her preschool because of her color. She puts on a brave front until her father picks her up and asks her how her first day at school went. As her father soothes away her tears, he proceeds to tell her how and why she is so special. This book is one that will definately be placed in my classroom. It shows the strenght of Beauty and her parents in trying to prepare her for what our ugly world can dish out.
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