Illustrated picture book
COLORS
A rhyming picture book about why difference exists at all — drawn by the crayons themselves.
By David Gibson Sr.
- Ages
- Ages 4–8 · read aloud
- Length
- 32 pages
- Read time
- About 8 minutes
- Difference
- Belonging
- Faith
- Read aloud
About the book
COLORS began as a poem, and it still reads like one. The whole book is a single argument in rhyme — that difference is not an accident to be managed but the point of the design — and it moves the way a poem moves, a couplet at a time, rather than the way a plot does. That turns out to be the right shape for the subject. A story about difference invites a child to work out who the villain is. A poem doesn't, and this one doesn't have one.
The device that makes it work is that the crayons are the artists. Every single thing you see in this book — the rainbow, the art gallery, the city, the faces in the frames — was drawn by the characters standing next to it. That is not decoration. It means the book never has to tell a child that everyone contributes something, because the evidence is on the page: take any crayon out of the box and something in the picture goes missing.
There is one more thing, and it is worth not spoiling for a first read. Watch the crayons themselves as the pages go by. By the last page every one of them has been worn down to a stub. Nobody in the book remarks on it. That is simply what it cost to make the world that full, and most children spot it on the second read-through without being told — which is a considerably better way to learn something than being told.
Inside
What's in it
The premise, in couplets
The book opens by putting its cards on the table: colors exist so that we can see the beauty in one another, not so we can harm each other with them. From there it builds — the earth would be bland without difference, the world is an art gallery, every face in it is a masterpiece — in rhyming pairs short enough to read aloud without losing your place.
The rainbow argument
The turn of the book. A crayon asks, politely, about the hues that keep getting picked to make the "perfect" view, and the answer arrives as a question back: how excited would you be to see a rainbow with just one color? It is the clearest single page in the book, and it is the one children quote afterwards.
The world in one tone
A spread painted entirely in gray, showing a street with one small figure standing in it, followed immediately by the same world with every color back in place. The two pages sit next to each other and do the arguing without a word of help.
The crayons wear down
Running underneath the whole book: the artists are spending themselves on the work. The gold crayon is a stub in a torn wrapper by the third page and still drawing on the last one. Point it out on the second read, not the first.
Questions to ask after reading
You do not need all of these, and you should not work through them like a worksheet — a book that turns into a quiz stops getting requested. Pick one. The conversation it starts is worth more than the answer.
- Why do you think a rainbow needs more than one color in it?
- Look at the crayons on the first page and then on the last page. What happened to them?
- The book says the world is an art gallery full of masterpieces. Whose picture would you want to hang up?
- Was anybody in this book being unkind, or were they just not looking properly?
- If your color was the only one left in the box, what would you not be able to draw?
Notes for the grown-up reading it
It is a faith-framed book, and that is not hidden
The refrain running through this book is that God gave us all our different colors, and the argument it makes about difference is made on those terms throughout. If that is your family's language, it will land as intended. If it isn't, the book still reads perfectly well as a poem about design and intent — but you should know what you are opening before you open it in a classroom or hand it to someone else's child, rather than finding out on page four.
Read it as poetry, not as plot
There is no problem to be solved and no character to root for, which means the usual read-aloud instinct — build tension, hurry to the ending — works against it. Slow down instead. Let each couplet land, give the illustration its few seconds, and resist filling the pause. The book is short enough that going slowly costs you about three minutes.
It is a first conversation, not the whole one
A picture book can make a child curious about difference and can give them a picture to think with. It cannot do the harder work of talking honestly about how difference actually gets treated, and it is not built to. Treat this as the thing you read before that conversation rather than instead of it — the rainbow line is a good handle to reach back for later.
