Colors by Shelly Rotner and Anne Woodhull

As I believe I've said before, I consider Shelly Rotner to be the new Tana Hoban, creating lush photographic masterpieces showing a diverse range of children. Of course, more modern technology means her books burst with color and life, something that wasn't available to Hoban back when she used photography.

This latest book examines color. The first spread has a simple sentence "Green hops." against a background of the color. On the left page, a single photograph is accompanied by a checkerboard of shades of the color. For green, we see a frog and eight different shades of green. The following page has an array of brilliant green photographs and a list of green words, "Green grass grows. Green peppers, leaves and peas. Lizards and limes, green eyes." The photographs show a bright green lizard, translucent peapod, thick field of grass, green pepper, vibrant limes, my favorite - nasturtium leaves!, and a tabby cat with green eyes.

Further spreads cover blue, yellow, red, orange, purple, white, and black. I was disappointed that there wasn't a brown spread, especially since the red one included a red-haired, white child. I also would have liked to see more specific identifications of the items in the photos - what kind of green lizard? Most people will know the orange butterfly is a monarch, but it's good to have those specific labels.

Verdict: A bright and colorful celebration of colors, great for use in storytime and in preschools.

ISBN: 9780823440634; Published July 2019 by Holiday House; Purchased for the library