The Black Book of Colors [Hardcover]

Menena Cottin (Author), Rosana Faria (Illustrator), Elisa Amado (Translator)

Book Description

Age Level: 5 and up | Grade Level: K and up

Living with the use of one's eyes can make imagining blindness difficult, but this innovative title invites readers to imagine living without sight through remarkable illustrations done with raised lines and descriptions of colors based on imagery. Braille letters accompany the illustrations and a full Braille alphabet offers sighted readers help reading along with their fingers. This extraordinary title gives young readers the ability to experience the world in a new way.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Starred Review. Kindergarten-Grade 8—With entirely black pages and a bold white text, this is not your typical color book. Meant to be experienced with the fingers instead of the eyes, this extraordinary book allows sighted readers to experience colors the way blind people do: through the other senses. The text, in both print and Braille, presents colors through touch (yellow is "as soft as a baby chick's feathers"), taste (red "as sweet as watermelon"), smell ("green smells like grass that's just been cut"), and sound (brown "crunches…like fall leaves"). Faría's distinctive illustrations present black shapes embossed on a black background for readers to feel instead of see. One page even describes a rainbow. A guide to the Braille alphabet appears at the end of the book. Fascinating, beautifully designed, and possessing broad child appeal, this book belongs on the shelves of every school or public library committed to promoting disability awareness and accessibility. A feast for the fingers.—Kathleen Kelly MacMillan, Carroll County Public Library, MD
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From Booklist

*Starred Review* How do you describe the colors of the rainbow to someone who cannot see them? This inventive picture book relates the ways Thomas experiences colors—through his senses of smell, taste, touch, and hearing. To Thomas, red is the sting of a skinned knee or the tartness of an unripe strawberry; green, the scent of freshly mown grass. What is most remarkable about this book’s captivating concept, however, is its execution. Black raised line art is set against black pages that echo Thomas’ spirited imagery and invite readers to explore what it’s like to read with their fingertips. The descriptive, sensory text, which also incorporates white type and Braille, combined with an innovative design, makes this book the perfect starting point for discussions on difference, perspective, and experiencing and describing the world in new ways, topics that are relevant to readers of all ages. Winner of the New Horizons Prize at the 2007 Bologna Children’s Book Fair and originally published in Spanish, the book concludes with a Braille alphabet. Grades K-3. --Kristen McKulski

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 5 and up
  
• Hardcover: 24 pages
• Publisher: Groundwood Books (June 28, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0888998732
• ISBN-13: 978-0888998736
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 11.2 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #72,232 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #63 in Books > Children's Books > Social Situations > Special Needs

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Why make a book on what reading Braille feels like and make the Braille UNREADABLE?, February 20, 2009

By 

W. Eisenberg "delennwen" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Black Book of Colors (Hardcover)

My Braille reading friends tell me that they CANNOT read this book because it is not real Braille--the dots are not high enough to be readable.

Therefore, if the point is to introduce children to what reading Braille feels like, the authors/publishers are doing an actual disservice because they are not accomplishing that goal, and they are giving a false impression of what Braille is and what it feels like.

I, as a librarian at a library for the blind and disabled, am extremely disappointed.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Agree with earlier reviewers - the Braille is unreadable., October 23, 2009

By 

Ulyyf "Connie" (NYC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Black Book of Colors (Hardcover)

This is a very good book. The concept is innovative, the raised illustrations are engaging (even though they have no color), the language is beautiful.

But the Braille is absolutely unreadable. It's simply not high enough, and it's in "Grade 1" Braille - the most basic (hardest to read) form of Braille out there, with no contractions or abbreviations.

So here you have a book that purports to show you what it's like to be blind, while being completely unusable by blind children. It's kinda like having a wheelchair accessible bathroom at the bottom of a flight of stairs - the thought definitely does NOT count.

If that problem were remedied, then I'd be able to tell all my friends to buy a copy of this book. Until then - three stars. And that's ENTIRELY on potential.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars beautiful, December 30, 2008

By 

MonkeyDog (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Black Book of Colors (Hardcover)

my mom got this for my daughter who is blind - and I have to say that this is the first book we've gotten that really speaks to experiencing the world beyond that of what we see. It's about color - but from an experience point of view rather than a visual point of view. And the illustrations, are so detailed and lovely. This is a fantastic book - all my daughter's sighted cousins were jealous!