FUN WITH COLORS

A bright, cheerful board book uses the colors of fruit as its organizing principle.

The book opens with an invitation to “discover a rainbow of colors,” but it does not present the colors in rainbow order. Following the lead of Lois Ehlert and Eric Carle, in the interest of simplicity, each fruit is visually reduced to its essential features. A peach, orange and apricot denote orange and are represented with surprising distinctness. Choices for other colors are surprising. A green apple is included, but the more typical red apple is absent; similarly, a pear is on the green page but not on the yellow panel. In an effort to include multiple fruits to illustrate each color, some fruits that are less familiar to young children are depicted. How many toddlers will recognize a pink grapefruit? Literal-minded youngsters may also be confused by the inclusion of a blackberry on the page for blue fruits. As with other titles in the Tiny Touch series, the back blurb touts its “bumpy textured pages,” but that texture is easy to miss. Companion title Animal 1 2 3 introduces one elephant, two birds, three lions, four monkeys and five fish.

Quibbles aside, the graphically simple pictures will serve as a way for parents and teachers to expand the vocabularies of their young charges and perhaps tempt them to try some of the less-familiar fruits.