COLORS! ¡COLORES!

Flowing watercolors and charming rhymes in English and Spanish combine to convey the colors of the natural world with simple yet sophisticated grace. For the word “Blue” (written in that color) Luján writes: “It’s all in the sky, / except for those flowers / and that little girl’s eyes.” He repeats the verse in Spanish, sometimes with slightly different words: “El Azul / está todo arriba, / salvo en unas flores / y en los ojos de una niña.” An impressionistic blue wash, dotted with stalks of grass and wildflowers, depicts a little girl in a blue dress with a brown antelope beside a blue pool. This same antelope dances across many of the pages, which often also include birds, fish, flowers and trees in various colors. The imagery in both words and pictures is often richly original: “Into a tiny seed / fits clover, fits a tree, / fits the whole jungle . . . fits green.” A lovely book to share, reflect upon and linger over. (Picture book. 3-8)