When Violet heads off for her first day at a new school, her main worry is whether or not the other kids will like her. She soon finds friends, but a new concern arises when a boy asks her a startling question: why isn’t she the same colour as her father?

Violet has never noticed the difference. Neither has the reader, given that everyone here seems to be an unusual hue – red, blue, yellow. Violet suddenly realizes that her mother is red and her father is blue. So why is she purple? Violet’s mother uses tubes of paint to explain what happens when red and blue are combined and reassures her daughter that there are other purple people, even if no one at school is quite her colour.

Tania Stehlik’s tale is simple yet effective, and illustrator Vanja Vuleta Jovanovic keeps things interesting by creating a world that is part Dr. Seuss, part The Little Prince, and part something else quite unique, a place full of wonky lines and unexpected blobs, in which flowers, snails, and butterflies appear in odd places (perched on someone’s hair, flying out a car window, crawling up a lampshade).

This familiar-yet-strange environment makes it easier to deal with the tricky issue of race without getting bogged down in earnest preaching. As a result, while the message will have a special resonance for mixed-race families, any kid who has ever felt “different” will feel right at home.