Review by Booklist Review
Gr. 4^-6, younger for reading aloud. There's a lot of good stuff going on in this imaginatively conceived and elegantly executed collection. On one page of each double-page spread is a poem (in one case, two haiku) evoking a color in nature--gray, orange, blue, brown, yellow. Opposite is a photograph, by freelance photographer Jason Stemple (Yolen's son), set like a cabochon jewel on a pale background of related images and words: sloe, sable, and jet for black; plum, orchid, and amethyst for purple. Each word is printed in its own hue. Somewhere on each spread is a sliver of a quotation about the color, from Mother Goose ("Its fleece was white as snow") to Eugene Field ("Any color so long as it's red" ). The book is a visual feast, and a verbal one, too, for the poems are striking: in "Green," "poets know / all the secret words, / some of which they make up, / all of which are / green." In "Pink: A Haiku," "A surge of sunlight / Shocks through stem and thistle hairs / A punk pink hairdo." In her author's note, which precedes the text, Yolen urges readers to use the photographs as inspiration for their own poems, and she closes with "Crayons: A Rainbow Poem." --GraceAnne A. DeCandido
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 5 Up-Thirteen poems, each a study of a different color found in nature, accompanied by gorgeous photographs, beautifully reproduced and artfully presented. Many of the selections are quite lovely: "A star fell from the sky one night/And landed in the forest, white/Against the green of leaf and vine." A few are less effective. A passage from "Gray," for example, lacks the focus and rhythm found in the more successful poems: "Gray clouds in the skies/Are graceful memories/ And gradual lies." Overall, though, the collection is thoughtful and technically accomplished. Don't let the picture-book format fool you; the entries will probably be most appreciated by middle and high school students. The central image for each poem is crystal clear, often set against a background photo or montage that fades into mist with an elusive quality. There's a playful yet elegant mood in the way the words and pictures merge on many of the pages. This is a visual delight, allowing both author and photographer to share their obvious love for the world's natural beauty.-Lauralyn Persson, Wilmette Public Library, IL (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
Striking photographs of objects such as a golden leaf, a pink thistle, and orange lichen on a rock provide the inspiration for these poems about nature. Yolen uses haiku, blank verse, and rhyming poems to create interesting images. In her foreword, she urges readers to write their own poetry in response to the photographs. From HORN BOOK Spring 2001, (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
The ubiquitous Yolen (Sherwood, p. 806, etc.) has previously collaborated with Stemple on three books of nature poems illustrated with photographs. In this latest joint effort, Stemple (Yolens son) first takes photographs isolating or emphasizing one color in nature and Yolen then writes poems to coordinate with the photos. Eleven colors are included, with Crayons: A Rainbow Poem as the final poem, gracefully melding all the colors into one lyrical homage to the infinite variety of shades in the world of nature, including the wide variety of skin colors in people around us. Each two-page spread includes one poem by Yolen, a featured photo and a related background photo, a list of additional color words in large type integrated into the design, and a fragment of poetry about the particular color from another source, often a Mother Goose rhyme. Yolen has done an excellent job of creating poetry of all sorts, from a few spare and simple lines to some more complex poems, and she has included both rhyming and non-rhyming poems as well as several haiku. Language-arts teachers will welcome this book, as writing poems about colors is a common assignment in fourth through eighth grades, and in an authors note, Yolen encourages young people to try writing their own color poems using the color word lists and photographs. The standard book of childrens poetry about colors, Hailstones and Halibut Bones, by Mary ONeill (1961, 1989), is for a slightly younger audience and doesnt have the advantage of the gorgeous photographs in this book that show natures true colors in all their glory. A multicolored gem for the poetry shelves in most school and public libraries. (authors note) (Poetry. 9-13)
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
