The authors examined the sociocultural representations of black children in picture books. Three critical perspectives were used to examine 23 picture books containing black characters. Questions used in this critical analysis were derived from sociocultural implications of implicit messages within texts, critical literacy, and cultural and social reader response theories. Our aim was to determine what stories are being told and how two adults, one black and one white, interpret these stories. We also considered the importance of analyzing these picture books when using them in elementary classrooms. We found that our different cultural and racial backgrounds influenced our response to a number of the books, clearly pointing to the advantage of discussing children's books with colleagues of different races.Light skin. Dark skin. Long legs. Short legs. Thick arms. Thin arms. Brown eyes. Blue eyes. Big nose. Little nose. Straight hair. Curly hair. Different-Mm-mmm, but the same, ah-ha! Now isn't it delightful, simply out-of-sightful, bein' with you this way! (Nikola-Lisa, 1994) From the text in this book, we have inferred that Nikola-Lisa understands the cadence of call and response, a traditional African American method of storytelling; his text is inclusive and joyful. It is an example of sound story telling and a culturally relevant children's book with text that honors children. Introducing all children to texts that include children they can identify with in a positive way is one way to honor children and is of maximum importance in the primary classroom.With the goal of honoring all children, specifically African American children, the purpose of this article is to explore the reactions of two professors, one white, one black, to picture books that contain African American and/or African characters. By making our exploration of books explicit, we hope to provide teachers with examples of how to choose and use books that show "positive and authentic interpretations of African American experience" (Collier, 2000, p. 236). We are concerned that young teachers may not know how to be selective when choosing books for classroom use. In some cases, there is a lack of selectivity because of the relatively low number of books published by and about African Americans. Statistics gathered at the Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC) at the School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison show clearly that of the approximately 15,000 children's books published in the United States