Should Goldilocks always be white?

There is a series of kids books that re-tell European and European-American fairy tales with all African American characters. Jump at the Sun books include Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Beauty and the Beast, Rapunzel, and more.

My four-year-old granddaughter, Rya, has two of those books and we used to read them all the time. That is until about a month ago, when she said after we finished reading Goldilocks, "Grandma, this book isn't right. Goldilocks is supposed to be light like you." Meaning white. Meaning blonde hair. Meaning definitely not brown.

She caught me up short. At four, she is all about figuring out everything. Her family is a favorite topic of exploration since we are a complicated stew of skin color, culture, sexuality, chosen and given family, and so much more.

Rya likes to point out all of our shades of brown -- she lines us up in order: Ti Ti is the darkest (my wuzband), followed by Mommy (my daughter, who is mocha-colored), followed by Rya (light tan), followed by me (the only white person in the family). She tells me I am "just a little lighter than sand," and that Ti Ti is "like yummy chocolate brown."

I love when her mom explains to Rya why she has such light brown skin and sandy curly hair: "You just didn't bake in the oven as long as some other kids."

Us.

So back to Goldilocks. I don't think Rya was making a self-effacing, anti-brown skin or anti-brown people comment. I think she was speaking her truth. I actually think she was being supportive of me -- pointing out a character who is "really light" like me.

She loves, loves Dora (don't we all love Dora). And she loves her books starring African American characters and families -- Amazing Grace, Jamaica's Find, Lola at the Library, Dancing in the Wings, and more.

When my kids were little, I had to scramble to find books with characters that looked like them. There was no amazon.com to search the world for stories that fit us. I would have been very happy if the "Jump at the Sun" books had been around back then. And books about interracial families? I found just one, Through My Window. It's a little better in book and video land now, but not by much.

"Jump at the sun" comes from Zora Neale Hurston's famous book, Their Eyes Were Watching God. Hurston said, "Mama exhorted her children at every opportunity to 'jump at the sun.' We might not land on the sun, but at least we would get off the ground." The phrase is, as the book is, all about Black self-love and empowerment.

I think Zora would want kids to read African and African American folk and fairy tales full of illustrations of Black people and Black life, and to read European and European American stories illustrated as the characters were intended and imagined. She'd insist a story be true to its roots.

So maybe Rya is just thinking like Zora.

Which makes me wonder: Should Goldilocks always be white? Blonde? Was "The Wiz" misguided?

What do you think?