A concise and educational dip into the artistic potential of color.
Bradley’s illustrated picture book encourages young readers to discover all the possibilities that the rainbow has to offer.
The rainbow’s seven basic colors—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet—are shown to be the keys to unlocking many more shades that make the world vibrant. The first combinations involve primary colors: Blue and yellow make green, as seen on the leaves of a tree or a tortoise’s body, while blue and red result in the indigo of a queen’s dress and a butterfly’s wings. Yellow and red become orange, like a tiger. However, unlike many other introductory color books, this one combines red and orange (vermilion), green and yellow (lime), and many colors with black, to show subtle tones: “The more we stir, the more we mix, the more that we explore, the more we see our colours turn to many MILLIONS more!” Bradley’s book is a great way to introduce preschoolers and/or art students to the building blocks of color theory. Sometimes the text is confusingly formatted, as when the word white is barely visible on its background. However, the book’s interplay between text and illustration is generally visually effective. Particularly notable is Trazsi’s portrayal of blue and green waves flowing around text into a large teal sea.
A concise and educational dip into the artistic potential of color.Pub Date: Oct. 12, 2024
ISBN: 9781068989407
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift.
A paean to teachers and their surrogates everywhere.
This gentle ode to a teacher’s skill at inspiring, encouraging, and being a role model is spoken, presumably, from a child’s viewpoint. However, the voice could equally be that of an adult, because who can’t look back upon teachers or other early mentors who gave of themselves and offered their pupils so much? Indeed, some of the self-aware, self-assured expressions herein seem perhaps more realistic as uttered from one who’s already grown. Alternatively, readers won’t fail to note that this small book, illustrated with gentle soy-ink drawings and featuring an adult-child bear duo engaged in various sedentary and lively pursuits, could just as easily be about human parent- (or grandparent-) child pairs: some of the softly colored illustrations depict scenarios that are more likely to occur within a home and/or other family-oriented setting. Makes sense: aren’t parents and other close family members children’s first teachers? This duality suggests that the book might be best shared one-on-one between a nostalgic adult and a child who’s developed some self-confidence, having learned a thing or two from a parent, grandparent, older relative, or classroom instructor.
A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-943200-08-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Compendium
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity.
A collection of parental wishes for a child.
It starts out simply enough: two children run pell-mell across an open field, one holding a high-flying kite with the line “I wish you more ups than downs.” But on subsequent pages, some of the analogous concepts are confusing or ambiguous. The line “I wish you more tippy-toes than deep” accompanies a picture of a boy happily swimming in a pool. His feet are visible, but it's not clear whether he's floating in the deep end or standing in the shallow. Then there's a picture of a boy on a beach, his pockets bulging with driftwood and colorful shells, looking frustrated that his pockets won't hold the rest of his beachcombing treasures, which lie tantalizingly before him on the sand. The line reads: “I wish you more treasures than pockets.” Most children will feel the better wish would be that he had just the right amount of pockets for his treasures. Some of the wordplay, such as “more can than knot” and “more pause than fast-forward,” will tickle older readers with their accompanying, comical illustrations. The beautifully simple pictures are a sweet, kid- and parent-appealing blend of comic-strip style and fine art; the cast of children depicted is commendably multiethnic.
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: April 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4521-2699-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
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