Submitted by county youth coordinator Janis!
Wow! Said the Owl by Tim Hopgood. This is a story of a little owl that is determined to see what the world looks like during the day. The little owl discovers beautiful colors—red butterflies, orange flowers, white clouds, and green leaves. This book is the perfect read-aloud to for curious little ones who are exploring the world of color for the first time. After reading this book, take a walk with your child. Discover all the different colors in your neighborhood. Talking to your child about these colors is a great pre-reading activity. See this book listed in our catalog
Colors
A Penguin Story
Submitted by Tess from Lexington Park!
In A Penguin Story by Antoinette Portis we meet Edna, who is tired of the lack of diversity in the palette of her Arctic home. Everything is either white (like the snow and ice), black (like the night or the feathers of her friends), or blue (like the ocean and the fish that swim in it). There must be more to life than things which are white, black, or blue! So Edna goes in search of a different color, and boy does she find it: orange! As in the orange of scientists and their jumpsuits, tents, and equipment! Edna realizes the world is much bigger than the small glacier she inhabits, and wonders what other colors could be out there.
Max’s Chocolate Chicken
Max’s Chocolate Chicken by Rosemary Wells is perfect for the springtime holidays. Someone (maybe the Easter Bunny) has left a chocolate chicken in the birdbath! “I love you!” Max says to the chicken. He’s ready to chow down, but his big sister Ruby (who’s kind of like the fun police) insists that they hunt for painted eggs. Whoever collects the most can claim the chocolate chicken. Ruby find eggs of all colors and patterns, but poor Max only finds mud, acorns, and ants, so he decides to run away with the chicken and eat the whole thing! This is an adorable story of sibling rivalry, and I guarantee you will fall in love with Max, the young and foolish title character.
The Black Book of Colors
The Black Book of Colors by Menena Cottin and Rosana Faria is a fascinating story published partly in braille. A boy named Thomas describes the world around him in terms of what he feels, smells, hears, and tastes. People who are sighted tend to take visions of simple things like fruit or rain for granted, but with this book one can imagine what it’s like to be blind. The pages of black drawings on black paper can serve as a gateway to discussing tolerance for people with disabilities with your child.
Mouse Paint
Mouse Paint is one of several wonderful books concerning mice by Ellen Stoll Walsh. In this installment Walsh’s mice are hiding from the cat, as usual, when they discover three jars of paint–one red, one yellow, and one blue. They, of course, jump right in (why not? there’s a jar for each of them), and start dribbling colors onto a white piece of paper. When they step in each other’s paint puddles (and do a little mouse dance) they discover that mixing colors together creates new colors!This is a fun book to help teach your child about colors, maybe with a craft to reinforce the lesson?
My Many Colored Days
My Many Colored Days is a Dr. Seuss book you may not be familiar with. It was published posthumously by his widow Audrey Geisel. He had written it, inspired by the view from his study, and envisioned it to be illustrated by an artist with a completely different style from his own. That mantle was taken up by Steve Johnson and Lou Fancher, who created beautiful paintings for the book. “You’d be surprised how many ways I change on different colored days,” Seuss writes, articulating how colors can affect, or be used to explain, our emotions, and how our moods may fluctuate throughout the week. My favorite pages are for feeling brown, and sort of “low down,” immediately followed by bright shades of yellow and feeling like a “busy buzzy bee!”