Kirkus Reviews QR Code
TWO RAINBOWS by Sophie Masson

TWO RAINBOWS

by Sophie Masson ; illustrated by Michael McMahon

Pub Date: June 1st, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-76012-779-4
Publisher: Little Hare/Trafalgar

Spare, poetic text depicts the contrasts and connections between a young protagonist’s life in the country and in the city.

The young narrator, with a blank face, a black pageboy, and skin color that changes hue from spread to spread, spies a rainbow from the window of a house in the city. Recently moved from the country, the child misses the pastoral expanse that’s been left behind. Each color of the rainbow represents bright memories that contrast with the noisy, bustling, gray city: a red mailbox next to a laundromat vs. a shiny red tractor in a field; a tiny discarded orange peel vs. orange twine around fluffy hay bales at sunset; a torn green poster vs. vast green fields after a rain. But then the clouds at the beginning of the book return as violet storm clouds—the same clouds that lowered over the farm. Two rainbows symbolize two lives—each with its own spectrum of colors. Digital illustrations contrast these two environments effectively, juxtaposing tall, monochrome buildings that crowd out the gray sky against small elements of farm life that sit at the bottom of the spreads with the rest of the pages devoted to the vibrant, colorful sky. Sharp-eyed readers will notice other tiny instances of color in the city spreads.

A lovely city-country story that celebrates finding your place, and your color, in the world around you.

(Picture book. 4-8)