THE COLOR BOX

A series of die-cut holes lead a monkey (and readers) through a succession of colors, inviting stops at each spread to pick out ``yellow daisies, yellow bees, yellow bananas up in trees,'' or ``green leaves, green frogs, green lizards under logs.'' The idea is not to present colors at their purest, but to sample the range that the words connote—reds here can be deep peach or purplish-pink; some greens would fit comfortably on the yellow spread; yellow and white come out more monochromatic. Laroche's cut and folded paper objects seem to float above the page, lending an intriguing three-dimensional air. (Picture book. 0-5)