Color Me Orange

by Judy Newman

I never wore orange when I was a kid. Or yellow. Or green. My skin tone tends toward sallow, and those hues did nothing for me.

Right before my wedding—when Ronald Reagan was President of the United States, decades after his tenure as President of the Screen Actors’ Guild—my mother booked herself and me for “Color Me Beautiful” consultations. I understand now, this was a valiant effort by my mom, a hard-working social worker and former 3rd grade teacher, and a true lover of children’s books who read to my sister, brother, and me since the day we were each born, to push through her clinical depression and have a girls’ day out.

The Color Me Beautiful color consultant labeled me a “winter” so after that—armed with professional validation—I continued to wear black and white and purple and jewel tones. But never orange.

So, I surprised myself when, years later, happily married and ensconced in my career in children’s book publishing, I ended up buying an orange sweater and wearing it at every opportunity. I had my Scholastic corporate photo taken wearing that sweater and to this day it is the only shot of me I like.

My career in children’s book publishing started back in those “Color Me Beautiful” days when Reagan was president and has continued through six U.S. presidential administrations. Through those decades, many things have changed in our collective American consciousness and how we express ourselves, but our commitment to wanting all children to be literate has largely remained steadfast. 

In my new role as Scholastic’s first Chief Impact Officer, I see this commitment play out in every classroom visit I make and every meeting I attend within Scholastic, with our nonprofit partner organizations around the country, and with the authors, illustrators, and publishers I and our team work with every day. 

When I show up in these meetings, I am most comfortable wearing my orange sweater, not a corporate business suit.

Anyone who works with children and children’s literacy knows we need to get close to children: to understand what they really want to read and how to ensure the grown-ups in their lives—their teachers, families, caregivers, and community members—are resourced, informed, and empowered to give them access to choose and own books they can call their own. We are not effective if we sit high above it all from a corporate perch. That has always been Scholastic’s treasured approach to literacy: through its Book Clubs and Book Fairs, classroom magazines, book collections, and author events—Scholastic is uniquely determined to bring the very best books from all publishers right to children where they are at school and at home. 

But there’s still a lot of work to be done—literacy scores are declining and the conversation around what’s right to read has been fraught—so I wanted to stock up on orange sweaters. I finally found just the right shade and bought a few of them on sale.

And I found a child’s size for one of my favorite children. 

There are so many children’s books about favorite clothing and sweaters. The title I thought of right away is the classic rhyming picture book Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear? by Nancy White Carlstrom, illustrated by Bruce Degen (even though that sweater is red, not orange).

As we head into a brand-new year, our commitment at Scholastic to ensure literacy for all children has never been stronger. Please take a look at our brand new Scholastic Philanthropic Impact Report. We are committed to working together to inspire everyone who cares about children and the future of American democracy—including the President of the United States who will be elected in 2024—to support our work to make sure all children have access to choose books they want to read and develop their self-confidence and identity as readers. 

If you ever want to discuss Scholastic’s commitment to ensure literacy for all children or learn about specific programming, please feel free to reach out to me at judy.newman@scholastic.com.
If we meet, I’ll be the one in the orange sweater.

Judy Newman, Chief Impact Officer, Scholastic