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A BOOK ABOUT COLOR

Name: A BOOK ABOUT COLOR
Author: Mark Gonyea
ISBN: 978-0-8050-9055-0

A CLEAR AND SIMPLE GUIDE FOR YOUNG ARTISTS

by Mark Gonyea & illustrated by Mark Gonyea ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 13, 2010

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This shiny, cheerful lesson has mixed success conveying concepts. Well-chosen subject matter includes definitions, color mixing and color vibes. Unfortunately, the arbitrary organization calls each hue a “house” on “Color Street,” making the spectrum linear rather than circular. (A color wheel appears only at the end.) Hue implications are intriguing (“Red is loving. / Red is dangerous. / Orange is cheerful. / Orange is powerful”), but low value gets the shaft (“Darker values have more black and can make things seem creepy and menacing”—yes, sometimes, but what about cozy Goodnight Moon?). The text clearly explains mixing primaries to create secondaries, but large, blocky cut-paper–style digital shapes don’t show blending the way paint—or digital images chipped into smaller bits—could have. Most egregious is an error defining complementary colors as the primary and secondary that “work well together... / [l]ike” Christmas’s red and green; that’s the common-usage definition of “complementary,” whereas the technical art term “complementary” means sitting opposite on the color wheel and creating a neutral gray/brown when mixed. Bright, glossy and flawed; excellent idea, less-than-excellent execution. (Informational picture book. 6-10)

Pub Date: April 13, 2010

ISBN: 978-0-8050-9055-0

Page Count: 96

Publisher: Henry Holt

Review Posted Online: Dec. 31, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2010

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS

- BOOK REVIEW
ONE LITTLE MONSTER
by Mark Gonyea ; illustrated by Mark Gonyea

- BOOK REVIEW
THE SPOOKY BOX
by Mark Gonyea ; illustrated by Mark Gonyea

- BOOK REVIEW
ANOTHER BOOK ABOUT DESIGN
by Mark Gonyea & illustrated by Mark Gonyea

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LITTLE DAYMOND LEARNS TO EARN

by Daymond John ; illustrated by Nicole Miles ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 21, 2023

It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists.

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How to raise money for a coveted poster: put your friends to work!

John, founder of the FUBU fashion line and a Shark Tank venture capitalist, offers a self-referential blueprint for financial success. Having only half of the $10 he needs for a Minka J poster, Daymond forks over $1 to buy a plain T-shirt, paints a picture of the pop star on it, sells it for $5, and uses all of his cash to buy nine more shirts. Then he recruits three friends to decorate them with his design and help sell them for an unspecified amount (from a conveniently free and empty street-fair booth) until they’re gone. The enterprising entrepreneur reimburses himself for the shirts and splits the remaining proceeds, which leaves him with enough for that poster as well as a “brand-new business book,” while his friends express other fiscal strategies: saving their share, spending it all on new art supplies, or donating part and buying a (math) book with the rest. (In a closing summation, the author also suggests investing in stocks, bonds, or cryptocurrency.) Though Miles cranks up the visual energy in her sparsely detailed illustrations by incorporating bright colors and lots of greenbacks, the actual advice feels a bit vague. Daymond is Black; most of the cast are people of color. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists. (Picture book. 7-9)

Pub Date: March 21, 2023

ISBN: 978-0-593-56727-2

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

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RUSSELL THE SHEEP

by Rob Scotton & illustrated by Rob Scotton ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 2005

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Scotton makes a stylish debut with this tale of a sleepless sheep—depicted as a blocky, pop-eyed, very soft-looking woolly with a skinny striped nightcap of unusual length—trying everything, from stripping down to his spotted shorts to counting all six hundred million billion and ten stars, twice, in an effort to doze off. Not even counting sheep . . . well, actually, that does work, once he counts himself. Dawn finds him tucked beneath a rather-too-small quilt while the rest of his flock rises to bathe, brush and riffle through the Daily Bleat. Russell doesn’t have quite the big personality of Ian Falconer’s Olivia, but more sophisticated fans of the precocious piglet will find in this art the same sort of daffy urbanity. Quite a contrast to the usual run of ovine-driven snoozers, like Phyllis Root’s Ten Sleepy Sheep, illustrated by Susan Gaber (2004). (Picture book. 6-8)