Through the Looking Glass Children's Book Reviews
They Say Blue
Picture Book
For ages 5 to 7
Harry N. Abrams, 2018 ISBN: 978-1419728518
When you look up at the sky on a clear summers day the sky is blue, which is what you expect because everyone says that “blue is the color of the sky.” The sea is also blue, but when you hold seawater in your hands it becomes “as clear as glass.”
Color is funny like that; it changes depending on how you experience it, and how you are feeling when you look at it. A field of grass waving in the wind when the sun is out can look like a “golden ocean” that a person might be able to sail on. Then clouds gather and rain begins to fall and the field is just “plain old yellow grass” again.
If we turned into a tree we would experience color in a whole new way. In the warm months we would delight in our green leaves and revel in “the sounds of summer.” Fall would bring falling brown leaves, and in winter there would be a white blanket that would cover everything so that we couldn’t “tell the difference between the land and sky.”
This remarkable picture book looks at the world through the eyes of a young girl who see colors in fresh and imaginative ways. As the narrative unfolds we are encouraged to explore the world around us and to consider how things change over time and how our perceptions are influenced by our circumstances.