Three Vibrant Picture Books To Teach Big Content

Sometimes, while looking for new books, we start an accidental collection. This is just what happened this summer. As new books were popping up at the library, on blogs, and through Amazon suggestions, we notice a “color” trend. All of these books used color as a vehicle to tell a much larger story.

Pocket Full of Colors, by Amy Guglielmo and Jacqueline Tourville

This is a biography of Mary Blair, the Disney artist who eventually designed The Small World Ride. From early on, Mary Blair was obsessed with color, breaking the “rules” of art, and being unique. When she was hired at Disney, her “outside the box” view on art and life did not mesh with the status quo of the Disney office. Having enough of the push back she left, only to be brought back by Walt himself to design what, arguably, is the most famous ride world wide. I mean, come on, the song is stuck in your head … isn’t it??

Teaching Ideas

• • The color vocabulary in this book is FUN-tabulous! (I know I learned a new color, but I’m not going to share which one!) This is a great opportunity to talk about the colors, show the colors, and get students to add some of these words into their writing!

• • The illustrations in this text are captivating from beginning to end. The color choice and drawings tell the story as well. Students can see colorful Mary entering the dull and boring office space. You can see the colors flow from her as she creates. Illustrator Brigette Barrager did a beautiful job in creating a stunning book cover to cover. Have students talk about art, being creative, and the use of colors. Depending on the age of your little artists, you can discuss primary colors, secondary colors, etc., blending, and much more. Have fun and let those creative juices flow!
  • Since this is a biography, talk about biographies with the students. Biographies are great, because they have a plotline and theme like fiction, but they are factual and have nonfiction text structures! There’s so much to do! In the end, students can create a technology-enhanced project about Mary Blair:
    • Students can create a magazine cover for Mary Blair at Big Huge Labs. Have them think of color, price of the magazine, headings, catchy text, etc.
    • Students can create a Voki about Mary Blair. Have them choose her physical features, background, and accent. It’s important that they script what to say before recording or typing the speech.

Festival of Colors, by Kabir Sehgal and Surishtha Sehgal

This story tells about the Hindu celebration of Holi, through color. In truth, I picked up this book for two reasons, I am obsessed with holidays and traditions and the front cover is brilliant. Having traveled a lot, I am familiar with Holi and the happiness it brings the Hindu people, but I still walked away from reading this book with new bits of information. I love that the story is told with two little kids as main characters explaining how they celebrate, the colors, and the deeper meaning and value of the celebration.

Teaching Ideas:

• The theme and message in this mentor text are right there for the discussion. The festival of Holi brings togetherness, new beginnings, and family strength. After finding the message in this story, have students think of the holidays they celebrate by generating a list and then ask what the message or theme of those celebrations are. This could end in a compare contrast (Venn Diagram) and even a compare and contrast nonfiction write! The possibilities are endless!
• The wordplay is this text is hard to miss! The sentence fluency is perfect for emulating in a Writers’ Workshop. In addition, the author plays with onomatopoeia. Take some time and talk about the sounds that are created, how it affects the text, and see if they can add onomatopoeia to their own writing.
• I would be remiss if I didn’t ask students to research a little bit. They may or may not be interested in Holi, but this is a perfect opportunity for students to hone their researching skills and learn about another holiday that might interest them (hello social studies, my dear old friend).
  • Information about Holi: The Festival, CNN Travel Information, & Myths and Facts.
  • List of holidays around the world: A blog post, Wikipedia (only a start), & a Scholastic List.
  • Create a Google Custom Search Engine for the students to help with research!
  • Use technology for students to share their findings … papers are “old school”.

Mixed: A Colorful Story, by Arree Chung

This is a simple color story with a much deeper message. The colors are all living separate, in their divided towns, all the blues together, all the reds together, and all the yellows together. Each feels their town and their people are the best. Then one day, yellow and blue get married and create a new color – green! Excited for the new couple and in love with their new creation, all the colors are inspired to venture into the unknown and meet others less like them. The results are colorful! The town, no longer divided, lives happily all mixed together.

Teaching Ideas:

• On the most basic level, students can learn the primary colors and some simple mixes to make secondary colors. Of course, depending on the readiness level of the students, lessons can involve relationships, prejudice, and racism.
• Check out our old post with ideas for color and shading (technology integration too).

 

Our other favorite color books from the past:

• Shivery Shades of Halloween
• The Day the Crayons Quit
• Pink is for Blobfish

What book would you add to our list?