COLOR BEARS

High-contrast black-and-white patterning combines with fanciful color scenes for some surreal stimulation. Each spread features a color (all the usual suspects plus multicolored stripes), with a black-and-white panel on recto and a color seen on verso that more or less depicts what the text says. “Fruity Purple Bears,” reads the legend in white text on a purple band underneath black-and-white silhouettes of various fruits; opposite, four smiling, purple bear faces dangle, plum-like, on leafy green stems. “Woolly Grey Bears” appears beneath black-and-white sheep and opposite a boy wearing an oversized gray sweater with a smiling bear face on it and little ear epaulets. Definitely weird, it’s nevertheless striking and not actually bad for babies still sorting out their vision and just beginning to grasp color. Just don’t ask it to make a one-to-one correlation with reality. (Board book. 3 mos.-1)