Help me ID a kid's book about colors
December 2, 2009 11:44 AM   Subscribe

Name-that-book-Filter: Large-format children's book, all about colors

Helping a friend find a favorite childhood book, so she can give it to my son. Here's what she remembers:
  • Big format (compared to a 3-4 year old kid)
  • It's about colors, with each set of pages dedicated to one color
  • The drawings were really detailed
  • There may or may not have been words on the pages (I only remembers the pictures)
  • I think there was a big paintbrush or something involved
  • I especially remember the white page
"Color" is one of those ubiquitous words that is useless for google. Parameters this vague scream out, "Help me, hive mind!"
posted by range to Writing & Language (10 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
It wouldn't be The Great Blueness and Other Predicaments by any chance? One of my favourite children's books.
posted by Paragon at 11:52 AM on December 2, 2009


Response by poster: Oops, forgot one more piece of data: Was published before (approx.) 1988.
posted by range at 11:59 AM on December 2, 2009


What kinds of pictures did it have for each color? Animals? Cars? Abstract splotches?

Can you say anything about the artistic style? Was it photos? Cut-paper like the Hungry Hungry Caterpillar? etc
posted by LobsterMitten at 12:04 PM on December 2, 2009


Response by poster: From the second debrief:

"I don't think there's really a storyline, I just remember pictures, everything yellow, everything green, everything red, etc.  Line drawings that were colored in, quite detailed..."
posted by range at 12:06 PM on December 2, 2009


Amazon has 317 results for Children's books, Age Baby-3, Basic Concepts, Colors. Maybe she could scroll through those and see if anything looks familiar.

If she especially remembers the white page, does she remember anything specific about it? An animal? A theme? Anything?
posted by Dojie at 12:50 PM on December 2, 2009


If you take a paintbrush: A Book of Colors by Fulvio Testa first came out in 1983. (I searched Amazon children's books for "paintbrush", and this is the best fit I see in the first 5 pages or results.)

Some authors that you might like even though I don't think they're the one you're after:
Chris Van Allsburg, Peter Sis, David Macaulay, Graeme Base - very, very detailed drawings
Leo Lionni - his books often feature art concepts
posted by LobsterMitten at 1:00 PM on December 2, 2009


It couldn't be Shirley Hughes's Colours, could it? It was published in the mid-70s as part of her Nursery Collection, which is quite a large book, and it has--IMO--some of the best illustrations I've seen in a book of this type. My daughter's much too old for it, but we still read it because the pictures are gorgeous.
posted by MeghanC at 1:45 PM on December 2, 2009


My Many Colored Days? I was just looking at it on my kids' shelf this morning.
posted by kch at 2:32 PM on December 2, 2009


I was thinking My Many Colored Days too.
posted by Edubya at 2:50 PM on December 2, 2009


Is it Do You Know Colors? by J.P. Miller?
posted by lemuria at 10:31 PM on December 2, 2009


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