Beautifully Me, a well-intentioned book kids won’t want to read

The Venn Diagram of authors, publishers, and readers is complex. Authors want everyone to read their books. Publishers love books that sell and readers have a variety of entry points. That last category could be a book that’s entertaining, fun to read (or look at), makes you think, teaches a lesson, or educates. It’s those last two classifications that are often the trickiest to maneuver in illustrated books. Beautifully Me is the story of Zubi, an overweight kid who is starting pre-K. It’s an illustrated book whose message about accepting everyone for who they are needs to be heard by young readers.

Zubi is Bangladeshi-American and has an irrepressibly positive outlook on life. She’s bubbly, loves bright colors, and is really looking forward to her first day of school. However, as she’s getting ready for the big day she overhears her mom complaining that her belly is getting too big and is accentuating the wrong aspect of her mango-colored sari. This makes her mom sad and leaves Zubi wondering why this is a big deal.

At breakfast, her older sister, Naya, says that she’s on a diet and doesn’t want the delicious parathas that her grandmother made. Naya has the school dance coming up and says that she wants to “look pretty” for it. This makes Zubi wonder if she needs to go on a diet also so that she can look good when she goes to school. Her father doesn’t wear the new shirt that was purchased for him because he’s “put on some pounds” and is “up to a large”.

When Zubi goes to school she hears some of the kids saying that their dress made the girl look fat. All of this is too much for her and she immediately says that she’s on a diet when she gets home. She turns down her favorite food and proceeds to remind her family about all of the things that they’ve said about not liking their own appearances that morning. This leads to all of her family members going into her room to say that comparing people to others can be hurtful and it’s what’s inside that really matters.

This is one of those books that’ll end up on various Top 10 lists because of its message and not the content or quality of the book. Beautifully Me will be read aloud by teachers in lower elementary grades. The teacher will have to stop a couple of times to hush the outspoken kids who’ll mention some others by name. This is where the good teachers will say something along the lines of everybody has something, now zip it and write a book report, you lippy kid. Some other teachers might just say, “be nice”.

It’s obvious that Beautifully Me is a personal book for author Nabela Noor. She’s a self-love advocate and a plus-size creator. The big, page-filling, illustrations in the book are by Nabi H. Ali and help readers get past some of its flaws.

For a book about body positivity, the visual disparity between the characters is jarring, but perhaps that’s the point. For example, look at how thin her older sister is, as opposed to our main character and the father. Beautifully Me is not a book about health, a responsible diet, or exercise, it’s a book about accepting others for who they are. Readers may also find it odd that Zubi’s family members are lining up to apologize to her because of things that they said about themselves.

The intended audience might miss that bit of irony. Beautifully Me would’ve been better served with more examples of how kids can jerks, instead of examples of adults saying that they need to go on a diet. Being in the classroom and hearing how completely cruel some kids can be, it’s those examples that sting the most and provide the biggest lessons that elementary ages will understand. As the book sits on its own, it’s more likely to prompt eye rolls and an uninterested audience than the hopes of body positivity that it’s aiming for. If we were putting this book into our Venn Diagram then it would solidly check off the first two concentric circles, with a strong contender of a new category, ‘books with a great message, but deliver it in a way that kids won’t dig’.

Beautifully Me is by Nabela Noor with illustrations by Nabi H. Ali and available on Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers.

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