YELLOW IS MY COLOR STAR

A bright and breezy appreciation of yellow (and other colors too).

“Yellow is my favorite color,” declares a girl holding generous bunches of yellow balloons. Over the next few spreads, rhymes sneak in and rhythm builds. “I like red too, / and also blue.” “Red” is enormous rose bouquets and a rose crown; “blue” shows the girl swimming in an ocean. Scansion varies, sometimes an infectious Seuss-ian patter (“Which color do you love the most? / Which color could you eat on toast?”), until rhyme vanishes again near the end. The most engaging of these cheerfully simple watercolor illustrations highlight just one color, such as when the girl, green-clad, swings through a landscape of green trees and grasses. Her jubilant, blocky profile and open-mouthed grin make her exuberance easy to share. Two middle spreads have little to offer (a dull field of flowers; some leaping frogs). When a multiethnic group of playmates joins the white protagonist, two unsettling details appear. While pink and brown people have eyes drawn in simple dots or dots surrounded by whites, one girl’s eyes are a single line each—a reductive shortcut connoting “Asian” that makes those eyes look inappropriately closed. Another girl’s skin is plain black watercolor; lacking any brown or warm undertones, she seems ghoulish alongside the others.

Somewhat inconsistent, but when highlighting a single color, sunny as yellow.