How Do You Say I Love You?

How Do You Say I Love You? by Hannah Eliot
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I love the idea of this book, with its message that children and parents all over the world love each other, just in different languages. I love that each “I love you” is written out in the original language itself, in the transliteration into English, and phonetically/with a pronunciation guide. It’s very sweet, with its depiction of regular children doing regular things.

What I don’t love is that it skews toward European countries, and that the illustrator, whose last name doesn’t sound Caucasian, somehow manages to make most of the children & parents look like White Americans. Perhaps it’s the dots for eyes or the narrow range of skin tones or the generic clothes and facial features?? I would have preferred MUCH more variety, and no pale-skinned redheads or blondes playing soccer in Egypt, for example. When I was in Egypt, most kids had brown hair & skin, & those who didn’t were typically tourists. Even the few Caucasian locals had more of a tan. I guess maybe the illustrator was trying to show the universal appeal of soccer? But white faces shouldn’t outnumber brown ones, so that made me cringe. In a book celebrating diversity, whiteness should not be the default.

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