VIVID: POEMS AND NOTES ABOUT COLOR by Julie Paschkis

I'm a long time Julie Paschkis fan. I have read her posts on Poetry Friday for years. Her last book, FLUTTER AND HUM: ALETEO Y ZUMBIDO, is one of my all-time favorite bilingual books, also one of my favorite animal books. I was excited, then, to see that Julie has a new book included in this year's CYBILS poetry nominees.

VIVID: POEMS AND NOTES ABOUT COLORS is a wonderful mixture of poems, and science, and fun facts (did you know that in ancient times, in Phoenicia, now Lebanon, purple dye was made from sea snails, and that it took 243,000 snails to make one ounce of dye, which was then sold for three times its weight in gold?), and Julie's original folk art.

In an author's note in the back, Paschkis says, "In this book, I paint poems of different colors, and I include some colorful facts and questions. I hope it inspires you to explore the art and science of color: to write, read, and draw a blue streak!" 

That pretty much sums up the book. Each two-page spread is about a different color- yellow, orange, pink, red, blue, indigo, green, pink, black, white, and ending with rainbow. There's a poem, some playful and some lovely, and also a paragraph of interesting information about that color. Here's one of my favorites:

"Yellow"
Loudly, rowdy
daffodils yell hello
Hot yellow

And the factual information:
"Yellow is often described as the color most visible to humans. Because many birds and insects can see ultraviolet light (such as light from X-raysor the sun), it is likely that birds and insects are especially sensitive to the brightness of yellow light. And the yolk of an egg turns a deeper yellow if a chicken eats more yellowplants. (Cardinals also turn redder if they eat more red foods, including seedlings or berries, and flamingos turn pink from eating shrimp.)


And a couple of more poems, just so you can see the playfulness and also the wonderful variety of style:

RED

Inquired Patrice:

"What color paint would you like tonight?
Crimson, scarlet, or cadmium light?

Magenta, madder, beet, carmine?
Quinacridone rose, alizarin?

There are a zillion!
Even vermilion!"

"Red," said Fred.


INDIGO
Diving
into
Long Lake
headfirst
in I go
plummeting
through
light
blue
deep
down
low
into
indigo.

Definitely a book elementary teachers and school libraries will want to own.

Poetry Friday, and a giveaway, is at fellow Denverite, Linda Baie's, TeacherDance.