Review by Booklist Review
K-Gr. 3. From "a green frog / on a green lily pad" to a "gray mama goose" and her "gold baby," the animals featured in these well-crafted poems flash with color and emotion. Each spread features a picture of a brightly hued animal, and Larios' rhythms and sounds skillfully reinforce the memorable, evocative images. Lines about a white owl echo the rush of winter wind in a quiet forest: "Who flies over white ice? / Who? / 0 And over white snow?" In "Blue Turtle," the lines bring the cool, shadowy world of the creeping creature close: "Slow / in the blue shade / of a blue-leafed garden. / Slow." And the open-mouthed sounds of "Pink Kitty" reinforce the meaning in a description of a cat's "pink yawn at dawn." Together with Paschkis' vibrant, patterned, gouache paintings, the poems beautifully show how color and sound create mood and imagery, and they will encourage children to notice how changing light and motion make everything different: "One hop / and her green / is gone. / See how she swims, / blue frog now / under blue water." Pair this with Mary O'Neill's classic Hailstones and Halibut Bones0 (1961) for more poems about color. --Gillian Engberg Copyright 2006 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Playful, whimsical images abound in Larios's (Have You Ever Done That?) 14 animal-themed poems, all delightfully realized in Paschkis's (Through Georgia's Eyes, reviewed Feb. 20) exuberant paintings. As the collection's title indicates, the animals each get an assigned color, some ordinary (Gold Finch, Brown Mouse), others extraordinary (Purple Puppy, Pink Cat). Still others transform unexpectedly (for the Green Frog, "One hop/ and her green/ is gone./ See how she swims,/ blue frog now/ under blue water"). Every poem gets a full-page illustration and a handsome, visually linked decorative panel. Swirling shapes offset geometric patterns to harmonious effect. Paschkis's exquisitely balanced painting for "Green Frog" renders a serene metamorphosis, as the frog takes a leg-extending plunge, her legs green above the surface, and underwater she becomes blue. Smoothly combining assonance, alliteration and near rhymes, Larios creates images that invite readers' enthusiasm, as with the title poem: "Oh,/ I think no other animal can/ (I know a mosquito can't)/ glow in the jungle sun/ like a wild-eared/ yellow elephant." A dynamic, contagious energy emanates from both the poetry and the art, whether the animals take to the air, land or sea. Ages 5-10. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 2-In this creative exploration of color, Paschkis's full-page gouache illustrations of animals are brimming with vibrant and unexpected hues: an orange giraffe, a pink cat, a blue turtle. Larios's poems are, for the most part, fresh offerings of alliteration, rhyme, and gentle surprises. Some pairings are more successful than others. "Red Donkey," "Silver Gull," and "Gold Finch" are the strongest, most imaginative poems in the book, with superb illustration and engaging poetic qualities. While the artwork for the surprisingly unsurprising "White Owl" is eye-catching, the poem itself doesn't hold the same charm that one finds in other verses. "Brown Mouse," too, lacks verve and whimsy. The book design is simple and effective: one page is devoted to the poem itself with words against a white background and a rectangular sidebar illustration to match the full-page picture opposite. There's no question that this is a visually stimulating and interesting book, thanks especially to Paschkis's folk art, which seems to be largely inspired by South American and African cultural styles. Not all of the poems are as strong, but the ones that rise above are a sheer delight.-Carol L. MacKay, Forestburg School Library, Alberta, Canada (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
Fourteen brief, rhythmic animal poems present a fresh perspective on the world of color: a green frog turns blue after it leaps from lily pad to water (""One hop / and her green / is gone""); a hot-tempered donkey throws a tantrum on a red clay road (""I'm tired! / I'm hot! / It's / not / fair!""). Vibrant illustrations perfectly complement this whimsical color zoo. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Fourteen familiar animals are the focus of this poetry collection, with each poem describing one animal's color and personality. The assigned colors are sometimes a realistic color for that animal (a brown mouse, a white owl), but more often, the particular color reflects an aspect of the creature's personality (an angry red donkey, for example, or a perky purple puppy) or the animal's surroundings (the titular yellow elephant "galumphing along" in the jungle sunshine). The poems are short, accessible and mainly non-rhyming, though many have subtle internal rhymes or a single rhyming couplet. The elegant design features the poems on the left-hand pages surrounded by white space and balanced with a small, vertical illustration of the particular animal. The right-hand pages are full-page paintings in gouache of the brilliantly colored creatures, with each animal set against a patterned background suggestive of its environment. The inventive colorations will intrigue children, who might wish to meet a pink kitty or a turquoise lizard. (Poetry. 4-8) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
