Book of the Week: Living Color

Living Color is not only our book of the week, but it is the book of the day as today is its publication date!  Written and illustrated by Jenkins, this picture book delivers what we’ve come to expect from this Caldecott Honor winner: a fun and exciting look at science.  Both eye-catching and inviting Living Color starts the reader out with an introduction about animals and color before entering into the heart of the book- its signature cut-paper collage illustrations, short paragraphs with tag lines, and descriptions of each animal by color- and closes with further information and an animal glossary listing each animal by color with its name, picture, body length, habitat and diet.  A Fall 2007 Book Sense Children’s Pick, Living Color brings to life 66 animals from a red salamander to a pink squat lobster and captures the wonder and art of science beautifully for its target audience of K-3 readers. 

Such an assortment of wildlife, scientific observations and hues in nature will partner well with K-8 science lessons exploring animal color, camouflage, survival, environment and / or behavior.  On his website Jenkins shares his appreciation of science, which Jenkins says “can be defined as a way of thinking about and understanding things”, and calls out the excitement (and sometimes challenges) it brings to a K-12 classroom.  “Ultimately”, he says, “(science) is a very powerful tool”. 

Science is a powerful and important tool for students of any age so please keep eyes open for Jenkins’ next picture book due out this fall:  Vulture Views written by April Pulley Sayre (Henry Holt & Co., October).

View this book on the Tandem Library Books Online Bookstore.