It’s Just Skin, Silly!

A Skipping Stones Winner, 2024

Hi!! I’m Epi Dermis, but my friends just call me Skin!

Raise your hands if you sweat, tan, itch, have hair, or have freckles!

I’ve been feeling pretty sensitive lately because everybody has something to say about me. But people don’t always tell the truth.

My color doesn’t make me fast, strong, smart, or scary. I just want to shout, ＂It’s just skin, silly!＂

＂[A]n irresistibly brilliant, pitch-perfect page-turner that should be a must-read in every Pre-K and Elementary School in our country.＂ -- Henry Louis Gates Jr

An illustrated children’s book on the evolution of skin color, based on a collective 40+ years of peer-reviewed research from expert anthropologist Dr. Nina Jablonski and historian Dr. Holly Y. McGee, with a special foreword from celebrated literary critic and historian Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Meet Epi Dermis, your kid’s quirky, clever guide to the origin of skin color! Using simple science and interactive activities, Epi takes readers on an adventure through human history to find out why skin is the hardest working organ in the body business. Whether it’s how migration and climate changed our skin’s need for melanin, to why sweat is your body’s secret superpower, Epi’s got all the facts--and uses them to challenge false narratives about race and give kids the information they need to do the same.

Dr. Nina Jablonski is an anthropologist and paleobiologist whose research on the evolution of skin color has been published in many scholarly journals including Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Nature, and American Psychologist. She is the author of several books, including Living Color: The Biological and Social Meaning of Skin Color and Skin: A Natural History. She has also been a featured TED Talk speaker, and has appeared as a guest on shows such as The Colbert Report and Bill Nye’s Science Rules! podcast. Dr. Jablonski has extensive experience in the development of science-related youth curriculum from grades K-12.

Dr. Holly Y. McGee is a historian at the University of Cincinnati. Dr. McGee’s research, teaching, and publishing in the fields of African American History, comparative black politics, and South African history provide critical insight into historical narratives regarding the social creation of ＂race＂ and subsequent proliferation of racism in modern society. She is the author of ＂One Day We Are Going Home＂ The Long Exile of Elizabeth Mafeking, and founder of the nonprofit National Black Teachers Association.

Karen Vermeulen is an artist, illustrator and teacher living in Cape Town, South Africa. Her work is happy, uplifting and quirky. When she is not busy with some creative project, she is probably playing with her cat, Sir Henry. You can find more of her work at www.karenvermeulen.com.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is an Emmy and Peabody Award-winning filmmaker, literary scholar, journalist, cultural critic, and institution builder, and the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University. Professor Gates’s most recent books are Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow and The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song. He has also produced and hosted more than 20 documentary films, most recently The Black Church on PBS and Black Art: In the Absence of Light for HBO. Finding Your Roots, his groundbreaking genealogy and genetics series, is now in its eighth season on PBS.