This adaptation utilizes a brilliant palette to convey a girl’s lush landscape.
Evoking the hot desert sun, warm, festive hues glow as Maya reflects on the vivid colors outside and above her family home. The Latina child experiences vibrant garden blossoms and the touch of her loving father’s hair. Bilingual phrasing places Spanish text on the left-hand page and the English translation on the right; the text is placed separately at the bottom of each page while visual design serves to bridge the two languages. Typography denotes the featured color. Full, yet spare, images contain a stirring lyricism. “The sunset turns my whole street pink.” The child's tantalizing descriptions continually illustrate keen engagement. “Mud is squishy, cool, and brown. / …Yellow pollen peeks at me.” In a vivacious dance between fantasy and reality, she flies against billowing clouds, near the watchful moon and sun and under her parents’ unobtrusive days.
More than a Crayola-rich concept, this exhilarating experience spills over in its sensuous perspective. (Board book. 18 mos.-3)
