4:24
\"Sulwe,\" which means \"star,\" is the main character in Nyong'o's book. Sulwe has \"skin the color of midnight,\" but wants a lighter complexion. The little girl goes on a journey which opens her eyes to self-love and recognizing her own, unique beauty.
Nyong'o said growing up, she admired books like Cinderella and Rapunzel where the main characters often had light skin and blonde hair.
\"[I] thought that in order to make it into the pages of books, you had to be light,\" she said. \"In fact, one of the first times I drew my family, I drew them with light skin. I used the cream-colored crayons and not the dark ones because I just didn't see that in books. I didn't think we belonged in books.\"
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Lupita Nyong'o (@lupitanyongo) on Aug 15, 2019 at 7:26am PDT
\"I wrote this to give dark-skin kids a chance to live in the world of imagination and magic,\" she said. Nyong'o said her 2018 role in the film \"Black Panther\" also enticed her to write \"Sulwe.\"
![\"VIDEO:](\"http://a.abcnews.com/images/GMA/191015_gma_lupita2_hpMain_4x3_384.jpg\")
“It took a while for me to find my stride.”@Lupita_Nyongo#Sulwe pic.twitter.com/jIIQ8sWX27
— Good Morning America (@GMA) October 15, 2019
\"Black Panther was a movie that was imaginative... it dealt with some really serious issues but in a fly and fun way and so that's when I had my ah-ha moment and I was like, 'Yes, this is the way I would like colorism to be experienced. I want for kids to love the book when their younger, and then grow up to understand it later,'\" she said.
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Lupita Nyong'o (@lupitanyongo) on Oct 14, 2019 at 6:23am PDT
Nyong'o ended her visit at \"GMA\" by reciting her favorite Dr. Seuss quote to a group of children in the audience: \"Today you are you. That is truer than true. There's no one alive that is you-er than you. So be the best you, you can be.\"
\"Sulwe\" is available now.
\"Black Panther\" is produced by Disney, the parent company of ABC News.
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