Starred review from July 17, 2023
Why does the blue morpho butterfly appear to be such a brilliant shade? Why did Van Gogh love yellow so much? This encyclopedic text delves into an entire spectrum of questions surrounding how people create, see, and think about color. Sections ingeniously organized around different hues detail how interpretation of color is a product of perception, language, and culture, and introduce readers to “colorful characters” themed to the respective shades—along with Van Gogh, there’s Oaxacan weaver Juana Gutiérrez Contreras, who created natural dyes based on ancestral Zapotec traditions, and the Switzer brothers, who invented safety orange. Bay Pimentel’s conversational prose and Safer’s dramatic watercolor, gouache, and colored pencil illustrations make for vivid information grazing. Ages 8–12.
June 30, 2023
Grades 3-6 Pimentel turns from the origins of musical instruments in Before Music (2022) to the natural sources of color pigments and dyes in this oversize nonfiction companion. For each color, fitting naive illustrations rendered in earthy watercolors and gouache depict people from around the world and various time periods creating colors from nature. For instance, prehistoric people mix burnt rocks and water to make a brown pigment to paint on cave walls. After simply introducing a color's origin, the author more thoroughly explains how the color works in science (such as how it's perceived by the human eye), how a color has been used by specific artists (such as Van Gogh's fondness for yellow), and its significance over time (as when laws declared purple for royals only). Each section concludes with illustrated descriptions of plant, animal, mineral, and other sources from which the color derives. The refrain "Before Colors" generates what Pimentel calls a "chain of colors," tracing how one hue in nature can be transformed into another. An attractive and distinct STEAM compilation.
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Starred review from April 15, 2023
How the hues that bring art and fabrics to life are made and used. "BEFORE COLORS, blue gum trees swelter in the sun. Someone strips off leaves and boils them. She is making...ORANGE." Sticking largely to colors produced from natural sources--with nods to a few manufactured hues such as mauve and the recently discovered "Vantablack"--Pimentel deftly describes how each in turn is derived, usually from multiple plants native to diverse regions of the world, from minerals, animal products, or other materials, like ground-up mummies for "mummy brown." She enriches each entry with specific examples of its uses, with notes on topics from mordants to Vincent van Gogh's fondness for various shades of yellow and the work of modern Indonesian artist Iwan Tirta in reviving batik. She mixes in more general considerations of the science of vision, too, such as how direct light rays and reflected ones produce different "primary" colors and how colors are differently perceived and classified in different cultures. Along with precisely drawn botanical and mineralogical vignettes, Safer underscores the author's global perspective with frequent full-page scenes of artists and dyers, mostly women and often with children in attendance, linked by dress or surroundings to a broad range of times and cultures. Lyrical notes add wonder to a bright mix of creative arts and scientific fact. (activities, quotation sources, selected sources) (Nonfiction. 9-12)
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Starred review from September 8, 2023
Gr 3-7-A fascinating and vibrant introduction to the science and sociocultural impact of color. In this follow-up to Before Music, Pimentel and Safer delve into the history of dyes and pigments. Readers will learn about the science behind color-how we see and use it. Readers will learn about primary colors (not just red, blue, and yellow!) and which plant, animal, and mineral resources are used to create the dyes found on our clothing and other textiles. Each section is divided by the specific hue: Brown was most likely first created from burnt rocks; European paint makers used ground-up mummies to create mummy brown; and groups of people, such as Native American tribes, have used it to color leather, baskets, and fabric. Each section also highlights a "colorful character" who was known for using that particular color-Vincent van Gogh and his love of yellows or Mexican weaver Juana Guti�rrez Contreras, who created a long-lasting green dye, because green fabric often fades with time. Factoids are sprinkled throughout, including why money is green and how the production of some white hues caused many people to die from lead poisoning. This celebration of color is as vivid and elucidating as its subject. Safer's illustrations add layers to Pimentel's poetic text, and the design is impeccable. Back matter includes ways for kids to experiment with color and source notes. VERDICT The perfect combination of art history and science, add this title to all nonfiction shelves and STEAM programming.-Shelley M. Diaz
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