How do you eat color?

This cheerful picture book manages to be truly engaging while effortlessly packing in all kinds of information spanning multiple topics. A pair of young children and their color-changing chameleon companion work their way through a day's worth of fruits and vegetables, with each edible sample compared to a color. Readers are encouraged to "Sample sunshine in YELLOW, / in a bite of pineapple." By lunchtime, the children are told, "You brown / like a yellow banana / and run into the shade to rest." The day ends with "Taste ORANGE at sunset . . . while the moon hangs / like a melon in the sky." Lush oil illustrations swirl across pages, creating appropriately vivid backgrounds for the characters' everyday activities. Most of the food references will be familiar, with a few outliers, such as "Hibiscus looks like flames, / but did you know it can become / an icy dessert?" A concluding glossary profiles each food and explains how it helps human bodies, with suggested ways to enjoy it. There are health and ecological rationales, along with suggestions for incorporating more color into family meals. Whether used to reinforce colors and increase vocabulary for very young audiences or as an introduction to units on nutrition, this lyrical and vibrant offering will add fresh perspectives to school and library collections.

This Filipino import offers a colorful approach to healthy eating. Nutritionists often encourage people to adopt a rainbow-hued diet in order to ensure they consume a wide array of fruits and vegetables. Two unnamed brown-skinned, dark-haired kids, accompanied by a bug-eyed chameleon, do just that. As the book opens, they're presented with a basket of various Southeast Asian produce. Each subsequent page is devoted to a single color, with a few matching foods. "Savor GREEN outside as you play!" One youngster and the chameleon stare in wonder, surrounded by a forest of bok choy as the other child runs around amid a field of moringa. Later, the three of them slowly paddle along a yellow river dotted with islands of pineapples and ears of corn: "Yellow can be syrupy like a spoonful of mango, or mild like corn on the cob." David's use of figurative language is downright delicious, while Doctor deftly uses different hues of the same color within a single page, with dynamic results; on one page, blots and spills of orange and yellow bleed into each other. Readers will enjoy noticing how the chameleon changes colors with each scene. The trio eventually fall asleep, surrounded by the darker shades of purple yam and plums. An equally vibrant guide to the produce mentioned is included in the backmatter, along with tips for incorporating healthy, environmentally friendly practices into one's life. A delectable journey through the imagination--and the palate.(Picture book. 4-8) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.