About the Book

Book: Wonderfully, Marvelously Brown

Author: Xochitl Dixon

Genre: Children’s Picture Book

Release date: October 1, 2024

Wonderfully, Marvelously Brown, follows a young boy on a joyously affirming adventure that celebrates all shades of brown, from the darkest to the lightest.

From new school desks to freckles and moles, from fresh pastries to cedar canoes, brown is everywhere around us. God created and used brown to color the giant California redwoods, the Grand Canyon walls, busy beavers building dams, great horned owls hoo-hooing, and his image-bearers.

Everywhere that I go
I’m searching to see
something wonderfully, marvelously
brown—just like you and like me!

Illustrated by Pura Belpré Honor Award artist Sara Palacios and written by Xochitl Dixon, Wonderfully, Marvelously Brown takes kids on a tour of the U.S. to seek and find all the brilliant and beautiful shades of brown—from ivory to ebony—that God created. Readers will be encouraged to love the skin tone God chose for them as they observe how the spectacular shades of brown are reflected in their communities and the world around them.

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I received a complimentary copy of this book and all opinions given are my own and not an endorsement of all author’s opinions.

Author Interview

1. What was the most challenging part of writing your book?

Researching the brown things, choosing which ones to use for the book, and writing meaningful rhymes were the most challenging things to do, though I enjoyed the process.

2. How do you weave Biblical truths into your writing?

Before I even begin writing a book, God gives me Bookend Bible Verses. These verses are the foundational truth on which I build my stories. The first verse is where I begin my story. The final verse is the last message I want the reader to experience ̶ God’s words not mine, because His Word is life-transforming. The Bookend Bible Verses are so much a part of the books I write that the pages are illustrated.

3. Are any of your characters based off of yourself or those close to you?

Everything I write comes from a personal place, no matter what genre I am writing, so my characters are often a combination of myself and the people God places in my life.

4. Was your writing process spontaneous as it came to you or very planned and organized? Why?

I know the whole story, where I’m starting and going before I begin writing. While brainstorming, I write a skeleton outline. However, I leave that outline open to change as I prayerfully write the first draft.

5. Do you have a favorite time of day you are most productive in your writing?

I live with chronic pain and fatigue, so I write whenever I feel well. This can happen anywhere at any time, not always in convenient places or at reasonable hours of the day or night. However, no matter where or when I am writing, I enjoy coffee and Dove milk chocolate nearby to help me stay focused on work.

About the Author

Xochitl (So-Cheel) Dixon, author of Waiting for God: Trusting Him for the Answers to Your Prayers, is a regular contributor for Our Daily Bread, the bestselling God Hears Her compilations and blog, and Tyndale’s NLT Go Bible for Kids (September 2024). Equipping readers to grow closer to God while nurturing an authentic loving community, she shares biblical encouragement, celebrates ethnic diversity, and advocates for disability awareness with her beautifully diverse family and her service dog, Callie, featured in the 2021 ECPA Christian Book Award Children’s Book Finalist Different Like Me, Diferente como yo, What Color is God’s Love? and Wonderfully, Marvelously Brown.

More from Xochitl

I’m a first-generation Mexican American raised by Spanish-speaking immigrant grandparents and parents, who taught me to be invisible and believed assimilation would lead to a better life for me. The racism and colorism I experienced throughout my life caused me to grapple with my identity, self-worth, and my sense of belonging. However, I was in third grade the first time I stood against injustice. In my teen years, my passion for celebrating ethnic diversity and standing against injustice while advocating for disability awareness and inclusion grew.

Then, in 1994, I married a man who shared my passions. As a first-generation Mexican American raised by immigrant parents and grandparents, a wife to a Black man, a stepmother to a Black son, and a mother of a biracial son, my commitment to stand against racial injustice became even more personal.

I submitted my life to Christ in 2001 and began asking the Holy Spirit to make me more like Jesus. That same year, after a student used a racial slur toward our biracial son, I wrote Different Like Me.

As God empowered me to love Him and my neighbors with a healthy and holy perspective, God began to grow our beautifully diverse family. My youngest granddaughter, whose father is Black, shared that kids teased her because she doesn’t look like her sisters, who share the same white father. I assured her that the melanin God uses to color all skin is brown, from the lightest to the darkest shades. Then, I told her that I would be writing Wonderfully, Marvelously Brown.

In 2020, Our Daily Bread published Different Like Me. As I edited What Color is God’s Love? and Wonderfully, Marvelously Brown, God continued affirming that He did not create the divisive and oppressive systems that label His image-bearers as “white” or “black” and feed the ignorance of racism or colorism. Instead, He designed melanin to include every spectacular shade of brown from the darkest ebony to the lightest ivory, even in those He created with birth marks, vitiligo, and albinism.

God intentionally selected every skin tone for every person He created and loves, His image-bearers. He calls every shade of brown good, including the shade of brown He used when He created you and me. As we celebrate our God-designed ethnic diversity, we can share the Good News of Jesus Christ as we love God and all our neighbors together.