Review by Booklist Review
The message doesn't just drive but serves as the whole vehicle for this manifesto against linking gender with particular colors. Pearlman's opening lines Pink is for girls. And boys. And bows on fancy clothes. serve as the narrative template (more or less: sometimes boys come first) as he runs through a series of hues to insist that they're for everyone and everything. Kaban chimes in with illustrations that feature a carefully diverse group of overstimulated children posing in baseball uniforms, running gleefully outdoors, barreling along in soapbox racers, setting up a Popsicle stand, cuddling a huge teddy bear, and similar collective activities, before gathering them all for a final parade beneath a rainbow. Though a scene in which all the girls are in skirts and the boys in short pants is probably meant to depict a period costume party, it still muddies the thematic waters by reinforcing another kind of stereotype. Nonetheless, as a component in a gender-centric storytime (or, provocatively, opposite a title like Pinkalicious, 2006), this has a role.--Peters, John Copyright 2018 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
To whom does a color belong? Pearlman (Groundhog's Day Off) invites readers to think about this question gender-agnostically. "Pink is for boys," he writes. "And girls. And bows on fancy clothes." A bow, of course, could be a snappy bow tie on a dress shirt, or a big bow on a party dress. Nine more colors follow, with the boy-and-girl order flipped each time ("Green is for girls. And boys.") But except for an evocative acknowledgement that everyone owns the color orange in the form of "popsicles dribbling down sticky chins," the narrative sags after the opening salvo against traditional binary thinking and opts for predictable pairings (yellow is for paper crowns, brown is for teddy bears, and boys and girls have access to both). Happily, Kaban's (Old MacDonald Had a Truck) illustrations, resembling 1960s animation, create an inviting, kinetic world. Her characters are bundles of mischievous, untrammeled energy, with mouths wide open in expressions of infectious and very toothy joy, as if using their inside voices-or paying attention to any admonition from an adult-is the furthest thing from their minds. Ages 4-8. (June) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 1-It starts with "Pink is for boys. And girls. And bows on fancy clothes." So the structure of the book begins with a color for girls and boys on one page followed by another thing it's good for on the next. Each duo is its own vignette. Blue baseball uniforms, yellow crowns, green grass, orange Popsicles, purple unicorns ("because.unicorns!"), etc. It is all summed up on the second-to-last page, "And all the colors are for EVERYONE. Girls and boys." The illustrations are an integral part of the reading experience as they perfectly set the scene for each color be it on the ball field, race track, park, or fancy dance. They depict a reccurring cast of characters; the kids are all joyously engaged within each scene. Kaban uses a mix of saturated color and white space to good effect and easily shows a myriad of activities. VERDICT A good choice for opening discussion about color stereotypes, but one that ultimately undermines its message by equating "boys and girls" with "everyone," and failing to recognize nonbinary children. An additional purchase for most libraries.-Catherine Callegari, Gay-Kimball Library, Troy, NH © Copyright 2018. 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
BLUE is for girls. And boys. / And uniforms on a team." Pearlman gives each of the introductory-crayon-box colors a gender-neutralizing treatment; in the corresponding illustrations, Kaban shows a girl and a boy happily interacting (e.g., playing baseball). The book is persuasive: by the time young readers hear "All the colors are for EVERYONE" at the end, that point should seem obvious. (c) Copyright 2018. 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
Pink, blue, yellow, and orangeall colors that are for boys, girls, popsicles, and unicorns.With simple text and vibrant illustrations of racially diverse children playing together, this book introduces 10 colors "for boys. And girls." For each new color, Pearlman shares an example of where to find the color: on sports uniforms, crowns, race cars, and teddy bears. Each color is presented in simple, repetitive text on verso (alternating which gender as specified first) with a vignette on recto and then on the next, full-bleed double-page spread. Kaban's illustrations of children dancing, running, and flying on winged unicorns add an element of liveliness to keep the repetition from turning stale. Colored type that corresponds with the name of each introduced color encourages young readers to participate in the story. Although the book shares the message that "all colors are for everyone," the lead-up to this conclusion perpetuates the notion that gender is binary. The statement that "PINK [or blue, yellow, etc.] is for boys. And girls" leaves out anyone who might not fit those categories until the end. Even the examples for pink and blue reinforce stereotypical associations for the colors, since pink is for "bows on fancy clothes" and blue is for "uniforms on a team." For a book that aims at inclusiveness, this one misses the bull's-eye.In this picture book, pink may be for boys, but colors are still not quite for everyone. (Picture book. 3-5) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
