Review by New York Times Review
COLOR is a funny thing. A phenomenon our brains cobble together from the data streaming in from our eyes, it fills us with a whole spectrum of sensations. We chop it up into categories, giving each a name. Then, our knowing the names actually affects how we see and think about the sensations. Here are three books all about color: one is about the names, one about the phenomenon, and one just lets those sensations do their work on us, in a gratifying way. "Red Sings From Treetops: A Year in Colors" is an illustrated poem chronicling the seasonal doings of Red, Yellow and so on, in atmospheric vignettes with a conceptual twist, and with exquisite results. The Red in the title is a cardinal, singing in springtime: "cheercheer-cheer, / each note dropping / like a cherry / into my ear." In summer, "White clinks in drinks." "Yellow melts / everything it touches . . . / smells like butter, tastes like salt." Joyce Sidman's language is vivid and deft. Slyly, she's conflating color as a sensation with color as a name: the words White and Yellow are stand-ins for ice and popcorn, the things they color. The rhetorical device is metonymy - calling an object by a related object or quality. It's wonderfully strange to read of colors with sounds, smells and tastes. But when "Red turns / the maples feathery, / sprouts in rhubarb spears," something stranger still is happening: Red is an essence, a primordial force that enters things, becomes and defines them. In winter, "Green darkens, shrinks, / stiffens into needles," a bracing image for winter's cold contractions. The language draws mystery and magic around the most familiar scenes. Edna the penguin finds "something else" besides black, white and blue in "A Penguin Story." Below, Henny Penny in "Yummy." There is no way for pictures to address this linguistic effect. The illustrator is obli- gated to paint a cardinal and ice, popcorn and pine trees. It may be the impossibil- ity of illustrating the central magic of the poem that led Pamela Zagarenski to pile on all kinds of other mystery, or at least mystifying details, in her delicately paint- ed scenes. Cardinals sing in the trees, but with crowns hovering over their heads. Images of birdcages and windows hang from the sky. To create a sense of story not present in the text, Zagarenski introduces a human figure or two; they are tiny-headed crea- tures in huge conical dresses, also wear- ing crowns and sometimes wheels under their feet. The paintings, while quite beautiful, feel obscure. A primitive quality in their style might encourage parents to give the book to children too young to respond to the poetry, but second graders and up, at least those who like language, should love it. Where "Red Sings From Treetops" plays with colors as words, Antoinette Portis's graphically bold "Penguin Story" is the polar opposite: a desire for new color experiences drives the plot. Edna the penguin, who knows only the white of snow, the blue of the sea and the black sky at night, is sure there must be "something else," and it's up to her to find it. The story, a quest to bring color into a lacking world, isn't new to children's literature, but that's all right; children who take to this book won't know the precedents. Edna's problem and its solution are a bit short on dramatic tension - her quest is fulfilled quickly and at little cost, as she stumbles on what appears to be a brilliant, orange rising sun. But the visual rewards are striking. On the next page that sun turns out to be an orange tent, part of a human expedition that includes a great deal of orange. It's no small pleasure in the written story that Edna's "something else" goes unnamed - the word "orange" never comes up. The drama is in the withholding, and little readers who know the word will want to shout it out. The same sort of withholding - of that new color, of what that sun really is - brings even more pleasure to the artwork. It's bold, simple, cleanly designed. Portis's penguins are pretty adorable, and when the whole rookery clusters knee-high around the expedition, helping them pack for home, it's a blissful scene of interspecies friendship. Color is at least as much a player in "Yummy" as in the other two books Lucy Cousins's collection of eight popular fairy tales simply delivers a lot of it. The traditional stories economically retold here (including "Henny Penny," "The Enormous Turnip" and "Little Red Riding Hood") usually feature pictures rich in detail:they work to give a flavor of the historical and cultural worlds that produced the tales. But Cousins's artistic style, closely resembling tempera painting scrawled by a child, is almost devoid of detail. Why does it feel so satisfying? Because the world of this book is, delightfully, a world made of paint. It's not history, not culture, but the feeling of the big, flat colored page that pulls you into the story. A jaunty humor shows itself in the blobby brushwork, but also in the expressions on the faces of wolves, hens or little girls (all wearing cheerful clothing of indeterminate period). Even the words get a chance to express themselves as paint: most spreads include something - a title, a quotation from the story or a bit of commentary - written across the page in thick black brushstrokes, like a child chiming in while a parent reads. It's a good take on these traditional tales for very young book-lovers. This is a book that will make you want to paint. Even if you don't immediately reach for the paintbrushes, "Yummy" offers a brilliant color experience and an introduction to fairy tales that everyone should know. You might be compelled to draw after reading "A Penguin Story," because those cute penguins are so simple practically anyone could make one. But read "Red Sings From Treetops," and I think you'll be more inclined to sing. In 'Yummy,' a jaunty humor shows in the expressions of wolves, hens and little girls. Paul O. Zelinsky has illustrated many books for children and won the 1998 Caldecott Medal for his "Rapunzel."
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [November 26, 2009]
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* The changing seasons have been the subject of many a picture book, but this one has a particularly unique take on the topic. Each season is explored in terms of how it encompasses colors. In the spring, Red sings / from treetops . . . / each note dropping / like a cherry / into my ear. Green peeks from buds, and yellow slips goldfinches their spring jackets. Succeeding seasons offer other opportunities for the colors to spread their particular magic. In summer, white clinks in drinks. The blue in water takes on many names: turquoise, azure, cerulean. Sidman also brings other senses to the fore. Old leaves and crushed berries smell purple. And though one might not associate pink with winter, it prickles: / warm fingers / against cold cheeks. All of these evocative images are matched in the imaginative illustrations. Stylized figures, intricately costumed and crowned, walk, run, and sail through Zagarenski's artwork. You'll find one in a tree picking juicy red apples and another set against an expanse of white, building a snowman. Throughout, the mixed-media illustrations, including collage and paintings on wood, provide much to look at. And as the title implies, the colors that surprise on every page do sing.--Cooper, Ilene Copyright 2009 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Anthropomorphized colors take charge in this fanciful book in praise of the seasons, from the collaborators behind This Is Just to Say. An androgynous crowned youth, dressed ornately in triangular apparel, plays host as colors are woven into unrhymed poetry. In spring, pink is "hairless,/ featherless,/ the color of/ new/ things," while in summer, the youth finds a companion whose headpiece is a cross between a crown and a cowboy hat (filled with fish, no less), and the two royal personages indulge in popcorn and lemonade on the dock of a bay. Fall strikes a more melancholy tone: "the wind feels black:/ star-spangled,/ full of secrets," as an enormous whale blends into the nightscape. Broad swathes of color compose the seasonal palettes, juxtaposed with painstakingly precise designs. The effect is evocative of primitive antiques: fleur-de-lis, checkered print and scrawled calligraphy abound, creating an artful-if, at times, precious-display that works in tandem with the gentle musings of the imagistic verse. The regal elegance is sure to charm. Ages 5-8. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 3-Through the seasons, this book personifies colors, starting with a red bird in early spring and concluding with it as winter ends. "In SPRING,/Red sings/from treetops:/cheer-cheer-cheer,/each note dropping/like a cherry/into my ear." At first Green is shy, but in summer "Green is queen." "In fall, Yellow grows wheels/and lumbers/down the block,/blinking:/Warning-classrooms ahead," and in winter "Gray and Brown hold hands." Sidman encourages readers to experience color with all of the senses. Some of Zagarenski's mixed-media paintings are full of light and others are darker and slightly haunting, but the rich colors come to life on the page. The words and pictures depend upon one another and blend well to conjure up quirky, magical imagery. Children will find many small stories waiting to be told within the detailed paintings and enjoy looking at them over and over. This poetic tribute to the seasons will brighten dull days.-Julie Roach, Cambridge Public Library, MA Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
(Primary) A poet known for multilayered explorations of nature (Song of the Water Boatman Other Pond Poems, rev. 5/05) rejoices here in the way colors, and how we perceive them, change with the seasons. In spring, shy "Green peeks from buds / trembles in the breeze," while "Yellow shouts with light!" and "holds hands" with purple in the "bright velvet faces [of] first flowers." Summer's blue is "Humming, shimmering... [it] grows new names: / turquoise, / azure, / cerulean." In winter, "Green waits / in the hearts of trees," and gray and brown are "the only beauties left." Zagarenski's richly patterned spreads ("mixed-media paintings on wood and computer illustration") capture the poet's delight in the natural world, extending the imagery with fantastical details like a cardinal's notes in red, each "dropping / like a cherry / into my ear." Fabric patterns and bits of newsprint add texture. The artist's delicate style and surreal details recall Lisbeth Zwerger's illustrations as well as the paintings of Gustav Klimt. Sustaining the playfulness of the text and its sense of awe, mystery, and beauty, they contribute gracefully to the celebration. From HORN BOOK, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Describing seasons by colors is not an original concept, but this whimsical color calendar sparkles with creativity. Zagarenski's mixed-media paintings on wood and computer illustration have a European folk-art style. The described hues are block-highlighted in the text while the artwork details the imagery in the words. A woman and her white dog, both wearing paper crowns, wander through the four seasons, observing nature's palette: "In summer, / BLUE grows new names: / turquoise, / azure, / cerulean." A red bird flying across the pages becomes a continuity motif. In summer, RED is a delicate hummingbird; in fall, "RED swells / on branches bent low. / RED: crisp, juicy, / crunch!" In winter, "RED hops to treetops / ...begins to sing: / and each note drops / like a cherry / into / my / ear." The seasons flow into each other, bringing readers full circle. Fresh descriptions and inventive artistry are a charming inspiration to notice colors and correlate emotions. Details in the artwork will invite repeated readings and challenge kids to muse about other color icons. (Picture book/poetry. 5-8) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
