At a children’s birthday party, Nicola Yoon was taken aback when the balloon artist told her that the faces on the princess balloon figures only came in peach

During the first couple of years or so of my young girl’s life, I worried primarily about keeping her alive. During infancy, everything was a choking hazard. In toddlerhood, every sharp corner seemed determined to encounter her head. After those fragile and harrowing first two years, I turned my attention to more emotional and spiritual concerns. I focused on teaching her to be kind, brave, and curious. I taught her that princesses were cool if they did things besides just hanging about in castles, looking pretty and waiting to be rescued.

These days, I’m working on teaching her perseverance, stranger-danger and sticking up for herself. I want her to be happy and I want her to know that happiness is something you work at. The easiest thing to be in this world is unhappy.

One of the things I want most though is for her to love herself. Part of loving yourself is loving the skin you’re in. I mean this metaphorically and literally, but right now I’m focusing on the literal meaning. I’m Jamaican-American and my husband is American of Korean descent. Our daughter’s skin colour is brown and I need to teach her to love the skin she’s in. How do I do that in a country with as huge a race problem as America? America is a country that loves the theory that all men are created equal, but doesn’t love the practice.

How do I teach her that she’s smart and beautiful and that she can be anyone she wants to be when the country and media tell her otherwise? Or completely erases her outright? How many cartoons and TV shows feature only white boys and girls? How many black and brown and Asian characters (if you can find any at all) are relegated to the position of lowly side-kick?

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Nicola Yoon, with her daughter and husband. Photograph: Penguin

This struggle to show my little girl positive representation is something I fight for every day. I fight by exposing her to media that depicts characters of colour in a beautiful way. I fight in my own books by making the main characters people of colour. My books reflect the diverse and beautiful world that we live in. I’m even part of an activist organisation dedicated to increasing diversity in children’s media, We Need Diverse Books.

But what else can I be doing? It’s a question I’m always asking myself. And a few weeks ago, part of the answer presented itself to me.

My daughter is now five. What this means is that most of my weekends are spent at kids’ birthday parties eating pizza and cupcakes and singing Happy Birthday woefully off key. Such was the case a few weekends ago. It was a pizza-making party at a local pizza place. Picture 20 five-year-olds and their parents kneading dough, spreading sauce, sprinkling cheese and layering pepperoni. Like anything else involving five-year-olds, it was complete chaos and lots of fun at the same time. While the pizzas were baking, the kids lined up to get balloons made. This is pretty standard fare at these parties. Usually there’s a face painter or a balloon artist. At the fancier parties, there’s both.

I’d never seen a balloon artist this good before. I’m not exaggerating when I say she was phenomenal. She could make anything the kids asked of her, and she was fast. The kids didn’t even have time to get impatient and whiny. She was so skilled that she didn’t have to look while she was constructing her elaborate creations. She made foot-long flower crowns, castles. She even made a car.

After pizza and juice, she decided to make more creations to leave behind – extras in case some child inevitably popped their own by accident. By making extras she was sparing some poor parent the tears and drama. Along with the standards – swords, butterflies, crowns – she also made elaborate princesses, complete with hair and arms and a gown. She drew faces on each with black markers.

All the princesses were white. Which is to say, she used the peach balloons blown up into perfect spheres for the faces. I noticed this after the fifth or sixth balloon drifted by. I checked out the balloon collection on her tool belt. There were three shades of brown balloons. My little girl was too busy eating cake to notice the princesses, but eventually she would and she’d want one. I wanted her to have one that had her skin colour. At the very least, I wanted her to see that brown princess balloons existed. I went over to the balloon artist and I asked her if she could make one using the brown balloons. She replied – and I’m quoting, because I remember what she said exactly – with this: “We don’t make princesses in those colours.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Nicola Yoon … ‘What I found astonishing … was that she’d never thought to make brown faces in the first place.’ Photograph: Sonya Sones

I told her that I didn’t understand. She had the balloons there on her tool belt. She said yes, she had brown balloons, but they weren’t the right type to make faces. She looked away from me and kept making her peach princess. And then she shrugged. I sort of nodded and walked away from her. In the moment, I was so taken aback that I didn’t know what to say. I found my husband and told him about the exchange. I won’t repeat what he said, but he was angry.

I’m non-confrontational. Fights make me uncomfortable. I’ll avoid them if I can. Moreover, I’m a sunny sort. Optimistic. A benefit-of-the-doubt giver. I believe that people are mostly good. I believe that if people know the right thing to do, they’ll mostly do it.

So, here’s the thing: I believed her about the brown balloons. I had no reason not to. They probably weren’t the right type for making faces. I don’t think she was lying to me because she didn’t want to make a brown princess. What I found astonishing though was that she’d never thought to make brown faces in the first place.

Surely, I couldn’t have been the first person to ask. And if I were, why hadn’t it mattered to other parents? Why didn’t it matter to her?

I get asked about diversity in children’s literature a lot. I’m the first black writer to hit No 1 on the New York Times young adult list. My first book, Everything, Everything, has been made into a movie, and my second one, The Sun is Also a Star, is a National Book Award finalist and has been optioned by MGM and Warner Bros. I answer all these diversity questions patiently. When I tour, I make sure to talk about why diversity in children’s literature is important to me and why it should be important to everyone. The leading characters in my books are people of colour and will continue to be.

Back at the party, my husband asked me if I wanted him to say something. I said no. I said I wanted to do it. I went back over to her and I said: It’s not OK that you don’t make princesses in that colour. She started to explain again about the types of balloons. I heard her out and then I said: “It’s still not OK. There are brown princesses. There are black princesses and it’s not OK for you to do that.” We made eye contact and I held it. She nodded and said, “OK.” And I walked away again. I don’t know if what I said mattered to her. I don’t know if she’ll do the same thing at the next party.

Here’s what I do know: I won’t shy away from these awkward conversations any more. I’ll say the thing that needs to be said. I don’t mind being a little uncomfortable. It’s worth it if it means we can make a better world.

Here’s another thing that I know: It’s 2017 and princesses come in all colours. It’s time everyone knew that. It’s past time.

• Nicola Yoon is the author of Everything, Everything and The Sun is Also a Star, published by Random House Children’s Books. The film Everything, Everything is on general release in the UK