'The Book of Colours' by Sarah Dyer: Review + READER GIVEAWAY

Post updated 12/05/15: Congratulations to Lori Inglis Hall, Sally Domingo-Jones and Silvia Viramontes Langton for winning the three copies of ‘The Book of Colours’! 

Hello! I’m back – and to herald my re-entry into the blogging world, I thought I’d kick-start things with an upbeat shout of colour.

One of the last posts I wrote before I took my blogging break was a review of Hove illustrator Sarah Dyer’s ‘The Book of Things’. I knew then that Sarah had agreed what looks to be a series ‘Book of’ titles with Templar, so I contacted them while I was off and they sent me this second title to review – and agreed to give away three copies again to Little Lewes readers. YAY! (See towards the bottom for how to enter – it’s super easy).

‘The Book of Colours’ is available in stores as of today (I know for a fact that Bags of Books in Lewes has several copies coming in!). It’s a book that, like ‘The Book of Things’ has various small narratives threaded through its ‘sorting’-style pages, in which Sarah groups objects and species into colours.

It opens with ‘Hello colour!’, where we’re shown what hues are created when colours are blended via the contents of tins of spilt paint and overlapping balloons. There are nice touches, such as a cat stacking blue and red bricks on a yellow mat to introduce the primary spectrum, and when a cat and a dog paint the roofs of their little houses in secondary orange and green, the cat’s paw prints trail up the page from its nearby tin of paint.

There are colourful vehicles – some of which are true to life (red fire engine, red bus, green tractor, black taxi) and some of which are less obvious (purple cement mixer, pink bike). Everything in the book has the object name written beside it (but not its colour) so it’s great for the beginnings of word recognition.

My boys’ favourite pages are:

Colourful animals, where they pointed out that my sometimes-baby would love to the yellow lion, orange tiger and random snorkelling housecat swimming beneath them (she really loves cats big and small). My favourite from this page was the octopus, jellyfish, blue whale and dolphin, all in shades of blues and purples.

Colourful food, where my younger one (which some of you may know is a very fussy eater) set about pointing out all the things he likes (chocolate, cake, ice lolly, bread – oh and as a backward glance, carrot and cucumber), and the things he doesn’t (broccoli, avocado, fig).

Black and white, where the page begins with white things on the left (polar bear, swan, ghost) and moves sideways through grey (rock, spanner, pigeon), and a middle section of black and white (polar bear, zebra, racoon, killer whale (“no mummy, it’s an orca”)), ending with all-black things (spider, tyre, ant and cat).

Colourful feelings – my personal favourite, where cats and dogs enact colour/feeling-related sayings: ‘green with envy’, ‘white with fear’, ‘purple with anger’. This is a sophisticated view on colour for kids – and I like that some emotions are brought into the book.

Just like ‘The Book of Things’, my boys love ‘The Book of Colours’, even though in theory it’s too young for them. I wonder what age children grow out of point-and-discuss books?

I don’t really need the answer to that – I just hope it’s not any time soon.

READER COMPETITION + GIVEAWAY (OPEN TO UK RESIDENTS ONLY – SO SORRY!)

This is a social media competition in which THREE copies are being given away. To enter to be one of the lucky winners of ‘The Book of Colours‘ just:

• Share this post on Facebook (Please let me know in the comments section below so that I can register your entry)
• Share the post on Twitter, following @LittleLewes if you don’t already, as well as @iamsarahdyer with the tag #BookofColours
• Share the post on Instagram – take a picture of your screen, or a screen grab from your phone of one that I post, follow @littlelewes and @sarah_illustrator, hashtagging #BookofColours
• Share the post on Google+ (again, please let me know in comments, as I’m so new to it)
• Comment on this post in the section below, making sure to put your email address in the indicated field so I can reach you. If you subscribe to receive Little Lewes post notifications (in the side bar on computer, at the bottom on mobile) I will be extremely happy.

CLOSING DATE

The competition/giveaway will run for a week, closing next Friday the 8th of May at midday. So get sharing!

‘THE BOOK OF COLOURS’ DETAILS

The book retails at £8.99 and is only available in hardback.

‘The Book of Colours’ can be found at Bags of Books, who have a good stock of the book. If they’re out of them, Bags of Books can order copies in for next-day or two-day delivery at no charge. It can also be ordered Foyles.co.uk.

The book makes a fantastic present for all kinds of ages of children, and would be great for schools, nurseries and libraries.

SARAH DYER DETAILS

Sarah’s website is at: sarahdyer.com, where her old blog is still live (she no longer keeps this up but it’s a good read anyway!)

Sarah can be found on Twitter at @iamsarahdyer

She’s also really prolific on Instagram at @sarahdyer_illustrator

For more Little Lewes posts about Sarah, see her interview about the ‘Book of Things’, and her guest post about her favourite Hove day with her son.

Good luck in the competition!

Disclosure: I approached Templar about reviewing ‘The Book of Colours‘ after Sarah told me it was coming out on May 1st. Following the success of the competition for ‘The Book of Things‘, they agreed to send me a copy and to run another Little Lewes giveaway for three copies. There are a couple of affiliate links placed in this post to Foyles, but apart from being a given a free copy of the book, no compensation, financial or otherwise, has been offered or exchanged for the writing of this post.

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