It's Just Skin, Silly!

• 250 review copies (150 prepub, 100 postpub) sent to reviewers, booksellers, librarians, bloggers, others. 
• We will seek early blurbs from children’s book creators, authors like Ibram X. Kendi, Jacqueline Woodson, Matthew A. Cherry, and Mahogany L. Browne, and activists and popular science celebrities like Bill Nye and Henry Louis Gates Jr.
• Available as an e-ARC on Edelweiss and Netgalley. 
• Leveled and aligned with Common Core. 
• We will seek to host an author Q&A chat on Goodreads. 
• Teaching guide available on website. 
• Marketing to library market begins with galleys in the Baker and Taylor ARC program.
• Promoted at ALA annual, mid-winter ALA, NCTE, NCSS, and African Studies Association annual conferences.
• Digital galleys to School Library Journal, The New York Times, PW Grab a Galley, ALA Booklist, Shelf Awareness, Kirkus, Washington Post, Foreword Reviews.
• Blog tour with book giveaways. 
• Goodreads and LibraryThing giveaways. 
• We will send review copies to relevant BIPOC empowerment organizations, youth activism organizations, children’s educational organizations, and citizen/popular science groups. 
• We will specifically engage with black-owned, science interest, social justice and activism, & children’s indie bookstores who may be interested in featuring the book, hosting a storytime, including it in their children’s book club or book subscription box, or hosting a virtual event with the authors.
• We will submit the book for all relevant awards. 
• Promotion online via Catalyst's website as well as email lists and social media (Blog, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube) with author and publisher interviews, chats, and guest posts. 
• Submission to the Junior Library Guild 
• Simultaneous e-book and hardback release. 
• We will pitch essays and op-eds from the creative team to major literary outlets.
• We will organize a countrywide school tour for the authors and seek ways to promote within the secular, progressive homeschooling community. 
• We will also be releasing a companion curriculum on the Catalyst Press website available for all parents, librarians and educators to use free of charge.

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.