Blondes get consumption, too.

Listened to "La Boheme" while driving to the nature preserve for a walk this Memorial Day morning. As a former cold and starving (well, not really starving, but definitely cold) art student, I love this opera of young artists living hand-to-mouth. As the mother of teen boys, I appreciate the jokes and horsing around of Rodolfo and Marcello. As a sweet, tragic, brunette embroidery seamstress who once suffered from pleurisy, I identify with Mimi.

A dearly demented friend has loaned me "La Boheme" with Jose Carreras and Katia Ricciarelli. The music is wondrous, but something is horribly wrong! Ricciarelli is blonde. Right there on the cd case, I can see that she is sweet and tragic, BUT she is blonde. That really ticks me off. Everybody knows that tragic sopranos with consumption are brunette, especially if they embroider and are poor.

Cough...cough, cough....

In the dozen years I've been teaching art with children, I've taught beautiful young ladies of many races and colorings. It makes me sad when they almost invariably draw a princess as a blonde with blue eyes. Do only blondes with blue eyes live happily ever after? Maybe my ideas about the tragic brunettes stem from early Disney indoctrination just like theirs.

Three picture books with beautiful, generous, and wise princesses of color are listed below. They are best for students six to nine years old, as they are a bit long for reading aloud to younger children. I look forward to reading them to my students each summer.

The Gifts of Wali Dad:
A Tale of India and Pakistan
Retold by Aaron Shepard
Illustrated by Daniel San Souci


The Unicorn and the Dragon
Written and illustrated by Lynne Cherry


One Riddle, One Answer
Written by Lauren Thompson
Illustrated by Linda S. Wingerten