Colors! ¡Colores! (English and Spanish Edition)
Kindergarten-Grade 3—Short poems and vibrant watercolor illustrations wed successfully in this bilingual book, giving birth to a sensory exploration of nature's colors. On each spread, whimsical poetic comparisons add multiple dimensions to the seemingly simple hues ("Yellow/rolls/through/the/sky/like/a/warm/gold/coin") and suggest that colors can encompass something broader than us ("Into a tiny seed/fits clover, fits a tree,/fits the whole jungle…/fits green"). Subtleties present in the author's native Spanish are occasionally lost in translation (for example, the alliterative wordplay ofVio un lago,/vio una flor,/vio el ocaso,/¡violeta! becomes "I saw a lake./I saw a flower./I saw the twilight./…Violet!"). Still, the essence of each poem remains intact. The colors are represented in beautiful paintings that contain both abstract depictions of nature as well as simple images of familiar outdoor things—birds, nests, leaves, flowers. Elegant details in the art and design further unify the poems and colors; a dynamic palette and other visual aids illustrate the passage of time, while an antelope (appearing first on the front cover, beckoning readers inside) functions as a familiar guide as it reappears throughout this first-rate collection.—Madeline Walton-Hadlock, San Jose Public Library, CACopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.