Red Ball

Anna-Marie Fournier, a former elementary-school teacher-librarian with
the Durham Board of Education, is an educational consultant.

This set of books about color should appeal to toddlers. Each of the
four colors is presented in attractive, sturdy board-book form. Examples
of colorful objects will be recognizable to most children, from the blue
water to the yellow sand, green grass, and red leaves. The text follows
a rhyming pattern that encourages memorization and repetition.

Each book concludes with the question “I like [color name], do
you?” which invites readers to add their own suggestions and thereby
extends the color-recognition activity.

Red Ball and Blue Hat have the most color examples. The second example
presented in Green Mug is somewhat confusing. Accompanying the words
“my rug” is an illustration of a child on a pink rug atop green
grass. The dialogue that picture books encourage would probably clear up
any misunderstanding of which of the illustration’s object is truly
green.

Given the multitude of color-recognition books that offer more
examples in each color category, these books are recommended with
reservations for purchase by parents and/or early childhood workers.