Overview

Dazzling in its simplicity, exuberant in its palette, Sara Anderson's landmark board book still bursts with a freshness and energy twenty years after it was first published.

It's unique graduated page design encourages the youngest child to discover the joy of color, to see the pages grow in size as the patterns of color appear. Colors shows a clarity and assurance perhaps reminiscent of the most jubilant of Matisse's cut paper collage. This is a book which is entirely in its element in a museum shop, but is most at home on the floor or a lap, being paged through, over and over, by young toddlers.

About the Author, Sara Anderson

Sara Anderson is a versatile designer and illustrator of children's books. She has also designed fabric, ceramics, and furniture for clients as diverse as MoMA and Crate & Barrel. The illustrator of Hey Diddle Diddle and Other Nursery Rhyme Favorites, Pumpkin Shivaree, Too Big to Dance, Octopus Oyster Hermit Crab Snail: A Poem of the Sea, and two original board books, Noisy City Day and Noisy City Night, Sara lives in Seattle, Washington.

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Editorials

School Library Journal

PreS-- Two concept books with stiff pages and a spiral binding that use vivid colors and a simple poster art style to create a rainbow effect as each subsequent page becomes larger. The first page of Colors reveals a fire engine labelled ``red.'' Each new electric hue displays a familiar scene: ``green'' is a pond environment, ``orange'' a jack-o-lantern. Not all of the selections are appropriate, as with a meadow in unpleasant shades of purple. The confusing final page, which is an unsuccessful attempt to draw the book to a conclusion, is labelled ``black,'' but all of the colors are present. The more favorable Numbers begins with one chicken and ends with ten cars. Each page has an Arabic numeral, a group of common objects, and a like number of dots which lends itself to the progression to larger pages. The format of these gimmicky titles, however, is inappropriate for school or public libraries. There are many other color and counting books which deliver a more satisfying experience. --Debby Jeffery, San Francisco Public Library