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COLORS OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST by Amy Mullen

COLORS OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST

From the Naturally Local series

by Amy Mullen ; illustrated by Amy Mullen

Pub Date: April 4th, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-938093-80-7
Publisher: Duo Press

In this board book, Mullen (The Colors of Ancient Egypt, 2016) brings readers the vibrant colors of the vegetation and wildlife common to the Pacific Northwest: flowers, birds, animals, a fish, and a mushroom.

Each color is featured on a double-page spread, with the name of the color in capital letters and the capitalized name of the organism along with an illustration on one side and an additional, full-page image of the organism on the other. This book features unusual color pairings. Some of them may be more familiar, at least in broad strokes, to toddlers (silver coho salmon, green Douglas fir, white bald eagle, black bear), than others (red sapsucker, blue camas, brown pine marten, yellow chanterelle mushroom, pink bleeding heart). The digitally created illustrations are large, vibrant, and graphically stylized, with colorful patterned backgrounds. The unrealistic illustrations of chanterelles look like flowers in one view and yellow cupcakes in the other, and only the heads of the sapsucker and bald eagle are their respective colors, which may be confusing. This board book may be useful for young readers in that part of the country; however readers elsewhere may want to stick with such favorites as Tad Hills’ Colors! (2015), Divya Srinivasan’s Little Owl’s Colors (2015) and Simms Taback’s Colors (2009).

Local readers may love this, but others will probably want to give it a miss.

(Board book. 6 mos.-2)