The Art of Selina Alko and Sean Qualls
![h1](http://blaine.org/sevenimpossiblethings/wp-content/themes/impossiblethings/images/h1.gif)
Write about anything! / It’s not black and white.
But it is. / Charles is black, / and I’m white.”
Last week at Kirkus, I wrote here about Irene Latham’s and Charles Waters’s Can I Touch Your Hair?: Poems of Race, Mistakes, and Friendship (Carolrhoda Books, January 2018), illustrated by Selina Alko and Sean Qualls.
Today, I’ve a bit of art from the book.
Enjoy. …
(Click to enlarge spread and read poem in its entirety)
![](http://blaine.org/7pics/2018/01/CAN I TOUCH YOUR HAIR_8-9left.jpg)
![](http://blaine.org/7pics/2018/01/CAN I TOUCH YOUR HAIR_8-9right.jpg)
![](http://blaine.org/7pics/2018/01/CAN I TOUCH YOUR HAIR_16-17small.jpg)
Can’t we / at least have this corner?”
(Click to enlarge spread and read poem in its entirety)
![](http://blaine.org/7pics/2018/01/CAN I TOUCH YOUR HAIR_32-33small.jpg)
while our classmates stare at us like we’re Martians.”
(Click to enlarge spread and read poem in its entirety)
CAN I TOUCH YOUR HAIR? POEMS OF RACE, MISTAKES, AND FRIENDSHIP. Text copyright © 2018 by Irene Latham and Charles Waters. Illustrations copyright © 2018 by Sean Qualls and Selina Alko. Illustrations reproduced by permission of the publisher, Carolrhoda Books, Minneapolis.
I think the blend of pigments (chalks? something for which I have no words) used to create the skin tones on each kid are striking. No one is all one color, and it shows.
Excellent point.