Rainbow Days: The Gray Day by Valerie Bolling, illustrated by Kai Robinson

This is one of the new additions to the Acorn line, coming from picture book author Valerie Bolling. It features a Black girl named Zoya, who loves to make art and in three short chapters shows her resilience and creativity.

In "Glitter" she starts outside painting the colorful autumn scenery, but is disappointed when rain ruins her art and sends her running indoors. In "Rain", she is sad at first that she can't paint the colorful picture she'd planned, but quickly cheers up and starts thinking of all the things she loves that are black, white, and gray. The final story, "Leaves" sees her creating colorful leaves to add to her gray pictures ending with heading back outside after the rain. The story ends with a brief note on the author and illustrator, guide to drawing Zoya, and some questions.

Robinson's art is bright and cheerful, with lots of glitter, matching Zoya's own colorful art. They have created a cheerful world for Zoya, with child-like artwork and and a cute, furry dog. Zoya's face is expressive with deep brown skin and eyes and a signature hair style of braids and a poufy bun.

Verdict: This brings some welcome diversity to the imprint, although the story is more on the gentle side than the more raucously humorous animal stories. I have a fairly large audience for quieter early readers and beginning chapters and this is likely to be popular. Recommended.

ISBN: 9781338805932; Published May 2023 by Scholastic; Purchased for the library