BABY BLUE

Baby Blue encounters colors.

The round-headed tot with a paper-white face peering from what looks like a hooded blue body suit is very comfortable riding his two-wheeler bike (not exactly a baby) all by himself until “the dark blue Night gently cuddle[s] him to sleep.” One day, his bike hits a rock and breaks into another world where there is “a strange warm light.” Peering through the hole, he spots another being, almost like himself only yellow, with a yellow bike. Baby Blue retreats into his own world until his curiosity about “the warm and welcoming light of the new world” gets the better of him, and he bravely sets forth to explore. He immediately meets Baby Yellow, who is overjoyed to see him. As the two boys play together day after day, “a beautiful new color beg[ins] to appear,” similar to the action in Abbot’s inspiration, Leo Lionni’s classic Little Blue and Little Yellow. But Lionni’s boldly painted shapes allowed kids to fully think about diversity, whereas Abbot’s gentle text with its unnecessary masculine pronouns and her uniform depictions of paper-white faces even as the boys’ shared world expands to include other children set unfortunate limitations. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at 25% of actual size.)

Alas, the book fails to honor either its inspiration or its own good intentions.