Review by Booklist Review
The engineers behind 2019's wondrous You Are Light return with another innovative approach to color primers. Here, each spread contains a uniform five-by-five grid of colored squares. Traditional cardboard pages are intercut by others where squares--ranging from a few to all--are made of an embedded (and sturdy) translucent, colored film. As the filmy squares overlay the cardboard, each page turn causes shifting color combinations, with the glossy material adding luster and texture. As a first-person voice debates their favorite color, Becker leads them through the spectrum, drawing poetic comparisons to nature that lend meaning to the abstract visuals ("Yellow, like the sun in a clear blue sky" pairs with a grid of yellows and blues). Instead of focusing on single shades, pages include entire ranges of reds, purples, blues. The basic premise--picking your favorite color--is enough to engage any toddler or preschool audience, but the mind-boggling depth of beauty and bookmaking ingenuity puts this offering on another level.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Horn Book Review
Becker's follow-up to his concept board book You Are Light (rev. 9/19) has a similar format -- large, thick, square pages, some with sturdy translucent inset colored panes that, when held up to light, transform the pages' appearance. This time the concept is shades and hues of color, with an offstage first-person narrator beginning the spare text, "My favorite color is yellow." We see twenty-five squares of yellow, arranged in five-by-five rows, each square a different hue and some so light-colored that they're difficult to see against the page's white background. Favorite colors can be changeable, though, and on the next spread, after extolling the virtues of yellow ("Yellow, like the sun in a clear blue sky"), and with an accompanying illustration showing squares of both yellow and various sky blues, our narrator switches allegiances: "Actually, I think blue is my favorite." The pattern continues along the color wheel, with each picture displaying a remarkable range of hues; it's like looking at paint samples or a Pantone guide (in a good way), with the frequent panes adding even more depth and dimension. Most pages have white backgrounds; the purple spread pops against a nighttime-ish black. By the end, there are various shades from different color families on the same pages ("And the dew-dappled colors of sweet, ripe fruits"), and eventually the narrator admits defeat: "I can only have one favorite color? Hmm...Impossible!" Equally impossible, for many viewers, will be picking a "favorite" in this eye-catching and mind-expanding color concept book. Elissa Gershowitz September/October 2020 p.56(c) Copyright 2020. 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 lively rumination on the merits of different colors--and can one ever pick a favorite? In this exuberant follow-up to his outstanding You Are Light (2019), Becker returns to the glorious medium of translucent vinyl inserts that allow colors to shine and meld. Based on a discussion about favorite colors, this board book is less poetically sweeping than its predecessor. Yet the topic of what color reigns supreme is a perennial favorite among the preschool crowd, making this nicely accessible for young audiences. Starting with the premise that "my favorite color is yellow," a white page shows 25 differently tinted sunny yellow squares. On the following page, the narrator muses that it's really "yellow, like the sun in a clear blue sky" and various blues are sprinkled about the gold and cream swatches. The narrator simply must then amend their favorite color to blue. As the book discusses the best parts of all the rainbow colors, there's an ultimate conclusion. Choosing a favorite color? "Impossible!" Lyrical musings such as "ripples on an emerald sea" or the black-backgrounded "purple hues of night" create vivid verbal images that bring the colorful squares to life. The sturdy translucent inserts work together magnificently, layering to create an unexpected richness of color. No matter what your favorite color, this rainbow ode is sure to brighten your day. (Board book. 2-4) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
