There’s Nothing Wrong With Being Different - Octavia LaShunta Moore

Hi, my name is Unique. My birthmark covers my whole eye, and my mom always finds a new way to decorate it for the holidays, which makes it feel more like a celebration than a secret. But not everyone at school sees it that way, and some days the teasing sends Unique looking for a quiet corner to sit in alone. Then a new student arrives, a girl named Forever, covered in light patches from a condition called vitiligo, and the other kids are just as unkind to her. At lunch, Unique crosses the room to introduce herself, and by recess the two girls have found something neither expected: a friend who understands exactly what it feels like to be looked at twice. Told in a young narrator’s own warm, matter-of-fact voice, this picture book gives children a gentle, accurate introduction to visible differences like birthmarks and vitiligo, and a simple message for kids of every kind: there is nothing wrong with being different, because different is what makes you unique.