About the Book

Book: Wonderfully, Marvelously Brown Author: Xochitl Dixon Genre: Children’s Picture Book Release date: October 1, 2024 Wonderfully, Marvelously Brown, follows a young boy on a joyously affirming adventure that celebrates all shades of brown, from the darkest to the lightest. From new school desks to freckles and moles, from fresh pastries to cedar canoes, brown is everywhere around us. God created and used brown to color the giant California redwoods, the Grand Canyon walls, busy beavers building dams, great horned owls hoo-hooing, and his image-bearers. Everywhere that I go I’m searching to see something wonderfully, marvelously brown—just like you and like me! Illustrated by Pura Belpré Honor Award artist Sara Palacios and written by Xochitl Dixon, Wonderfully, Marvelously Brown takes kids on a tour of the U.S. to seek and find all the brilliant and beautiful shades of brown—from ivory to ebony—that God created. Readers will be encouraged to love the skin tone God chose for them as they observe how the spectacular shades of brown are reflected in their communities and the world around them.

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About the Author

Xochitl (So-Cheel) Dixon, author of Waiting for God: Trusting Him for the Answers to Your Prayers, is a regular contributor for Our Daily Bread, the bestselling God Hears Her compilations and blog, and Tyndale’s NLT Go Bible for Kids (September 2024). Equipping readers to grow closer to God while nurturing an authentic loving community, she shares biblical encouragement, celebrates ethnic diversity, and advocates for disability awareness with her beautifully diverse family and her service dog, Callie, featured in the 2021 ECPA Christian Book Award Children’s Book Finalist Different Like Me, Diferente como yo, What Color is God’s Love? and Wonderfully, Marvelously Brown.

More from Xochitl

I’m a first-generation Mexican American raised by Spanish-speaking immigrant grandparents and parents, who taught me to be invisible and believed assimilation would lead to a better life for me. The racism and colorism I experienced throughout my life caused me to grapple with my identity, self-worth, and my sense of belonging. However, I was in third grade the first time I stood against injustice. In my teen years, my passion for celebrating ethnic diversity and standing against injustice while advocating for disability awareness and inclusion grew. Then, in 1994, I married a man who shared my passions. As a first-generation Mexican American raised by immigrant parents and grandparents, a wife to a Black man, a stepmother to a Black son, and a mother of a biracial son, my commitment to stand against racial injustice became even more personal. I submitted my life to Christ in 2001 and began asking the Holy Spirit to make me more like Jesus. That same year, after a student used a racial slur toward our biracial son, I wrote Different Like Me. As God empowered me to love Him and my neighbors with a healthy and holy perspective, God began to grow our beautifully diverse family. My youngest granddaughter, whose father is Black, shared that kids teased her because she doesn’t look like her sisters, who share the same white father. I assured her that the melanin God uses to color all skin is brown, from the lightest to the darkest shades. Then, I told her that I would be writing Wonderfully, Marvelously Brown. In 2020, Our Daily Bread published Different Like Me. As I edited What Color is God’s Love? and Wonderfully, Marvelously Brown, God continued affirming that He did not create the divisive and oppressive systems that label His image-bearers as “white” or “black” and feed the ignorance of racism or colorism. Instead, He designed melanin to include every spectacular shade of brown from the darkest ebony to the lightest ivory, even in those He created with birth marks, vitiligo, and albinism. God intentionally selected every skin tone for every person He created and loves, His image-bearers. He calls every shade of brown good, including the shade of brown He used when He created you and me. As we celebrate our God-designed ethnic diversity, we can share the Good News of Jesus Christ as we love God and all our neighbors together.

Interview with the Author

1. Do you read books in this genre? If so, who do you like to read? Yes. I love reading picture books. I enjoy Dr. Seuss books, books that have diverse characters, and books that are written by diverse authors.

2. What helps you to write? Do you eat snacks, listen to music? Praying and reading the Bible helps ignite my imagination. I am able to write in silence, as well as with music or with the TV on in the background. I don’t really have a preference. I enjoy coffee and Dove milk chocolate when I’m writing. I also enjoy taking a break to eat an apple or whatever fruit I have in the house.

3. What is your favorite book and why? The life-transforming, unerring and unchanging word of God ̶ the Bible.

4. What inspired you to write this book? A fellow student told my granddaughter that she couldn’t be related to her sisters because she has a darker skin tone than them. I shared that I had been teased for being too light when I was a child. I explained that God made and uses melanin, which is brown, to design the perfect skin color for each of his image-bearers. I assured her that every person God made is wonderfully, marvelously brown, from the darkest ebony to the lightest ivory. Then, I promised to write a book that celebrated every spectacular shade of brown God made.

5. What is one question you would like readers to ask you? What would be your answer? I would love readers to ask me to share more about Jesus. I would begin wherever our conversation has us in that moment and pray for the Holy Spirit to help me share relevant Scriptures.