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WHAT COLOR IS A KISS? by Rocio Bonilla

WHAT COLOR IS A KISS?

by Rocio Bonilla ; illustrated by Rocio Bonilla

Pub Date: Dec. 6th, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-58089-739-6
Publisher: Charlesbridge

A little girl who knows her mind when it comes to what she likes is stymied when she ponders the color of a kiss.

Monica likes riding her bike, strawberry cake, and her mother’s stories, but what she loves is painting. She’s painted all sorts of things in all kinds of colors, but she’s never painted a kiss. What color is a kiss? Subsequent double-page spreads consider the colors in turn: red, green, yellow, brown, white, pink, blue, and black/gray. But there are good and bad things in each color: spaghetti-sauce red is the color of anger and people don’t give kisses when angry, and while her favorite cakes are pink, Monica does not like princesses or fairies (the black-haired white girl is dressed all in black and white). In the end, Monica asks an expert: her mother. The wordless response fills the final spread with rainbow-patterned and -colored hearts. But while sweet, this answer may leave concrete-thinking readers without closure. In each of the color-dedicated spreads, almost everything is pictured in the featured hue, sometimes even Monica herself. Bonilla’s choices are all over the map: Monica doesn’t like vegetables, most of which are green (she covers her mouth as if about to throw up in one picture), and the brown spread features chocolate, fall leaves, and dog poop.

Likely to be a kiss for artists-in-training but a miss for others.

(Picture book. 4-8)