Review by Booklist Review
Ages 3-5. Three young dancers cavort across the pages of this full-color picture book waving ~scarves of the same hues as their leotards. The movement, which causes the scarves to overlap, demonstrates color combinations: "Red and blue can make magenta and purple and violet. But yellow and yellow can only make yellows." Rather than bright, primary colors, Jonas uses watercolors in pastel shades. Perhaps this makes sense artistically, but literal-minded children will object that the red looks pink. For helpful color identification, the words (chartreuse, aqua~marine, green) are written in the appropriate shade. In the last few pages a boy dances through the pages with a white, then a gray, then a black scarf, showing how they affect the colors. The clean, spare design of the white background and horizontal spreads makes the contrasting hues all the more striking. An effective picture book for children ready to move beyond mere color labeling. --Carolyn Phelan
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
A dance theme, with children trailing and waving scarves of bright hues, teaches principles of mixing primary colors. The book opens with three figures, one dressed in red, another in blue and a third in yellow, each carrying a matching banner and saying, ``This is our dance.'' The only subsequent text presents color facts in simple sentences: ``Orange is red and yellow mixed together. No blue.'' On the page, the scarves demonstrate the stated concepts. The blue tone is not a medium blue, and the red is more of a dark rose, so this book does not introduce what is traditionally considered to be the true color spectrum, nor does the structure of the lesson make a vivid impression. Where the text says, ``Red and blue can make magenta, and purple, and violet,'' the illustration does not successfully show more than one color. The idea that ``blue and blue can only make blues'' may be confusing to readers, who can clearly see that, at a minimum, there are lighter and darker shades of blue. Because of some of the vagaries of the concept, this remains little more than a teaching tool. All ages. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 2-- An exuberant, joyful celebration of color and movement, Color Dance is a concept book to use for the fun of it. Minimal text explains that many colors are the products of mixes of red, yellow, and blue; a note explains that red can appear in a variety of shades. Emphasizing the color concepts, each color word is printed in the color it describes throughout the book. The same message is visually conveyed by the movement of three very young dancers, whose waving scarves produce the blends. Joined by a boy carrying a white, then a gray scarf, the characters are racially and sexually mixed. Using line and shadow, Jonas captures the movement of the children well. White space is used effectively, and each watercolor illustration stands cleanly on a double-page spread. An author's note explains that this dance is a fantasy, ``. . .easier to perform on paper than on a stage.'' A color wheel completes the conceptual design. This vigorous, fresh approach to color will be welcomed by picture-book lovers, and storytime groups as well. --Carolyn Noah, Worcester Public Library, MA (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
Using the format of a graceful scarf dance, Jonas introduces young readers to the range of colors encompassed in combinations of the three primary colors and the added effect of using white and black. It is a minor distraction that the red lacks the vibrancy of the yellow and blue in this imaginative concept 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
A novel idea for a book about color: Three small dancers wave diaphanous scarves to demonstrate how colors combine. There are many subtleties here: where the fabric is doubled, color is intensified, producing many shades of red or such variants as chartreuse and aquamarine. A boy joins the girls to add white, gray, and black scarves in turn; the book concludes with a color wheel and the comment that ""Color Dance is a fantasy"": the scenes are easier to paint on paper than perform on stage. It's not even so easy on paper: for instance, the printer's red shown is pinker than the popular idea of true red; the violet is more like blue; and the yellow doubles on itself to make orange. Laboring over such nuances is inevitable in discussing color; Jonas' book may provoke more discussion than she intended. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
