Colors [Hardcover]

Ken Nordine (Author), Henrik Drescher (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 6, 2000

Colors sings of the beautiful burgeoning of burgundy, the sorrow of olive, the story of the green that is green with envy. Colors divulges the silliness of orange, the pomp of purple, the off-whiteness of white—revealing the many subtle personalities of color. Ken Nordine's "word jazz" gives voice to color and Henrik Drescher's irrepressible "image jazz" completes the picture—and lets you in on the many quirks of colors. •Stunning poems by a well-known radio commentator who's featured weekly on dozens of National Public Radio stations • Daring illustrations by an artist whose work appears regularly in the New York Times Magazine, Newsday, and Rolling Stone

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

According to author (and NPR commentator) Ken Nordine, there are many different greens inside of green: "the green that should never've happened... the truly intelligent green... the who-cares-anyway green." Orange, on the other hand, that's a color that's "orangely out of its head." Burgundy is "FAT/burstingly burgundy so." And don't even get him started on magenta, the "gossipy, witty, well-connected" color.

Nordine's multi-hued "word jazz" breathes fiery life into the quirky personalities of colors. On each two-page spread, Nordine tackles a new color with a snazzy, jazzy, hip poem depicting all its woes and wonders. Olive is suffering from low self-esteem--who knew? And silly azure, with its nutty ideas, just likes to be different. The author truly soars with his treatise on the color "flesh": "Flesh, as a color, is an awful mess." If all the flesh colors refuse to "establish a sensible sanity/ among differences... flesh, as a color,/ could be black and blue/ or even a bloody hue." Henrik Drescher's wacky and wild illustrations make use of a child's drawings from the 1930s, as well as his own remarkable and unique imagination to create what might be the first glimpses of the real personalities of yellow, purple, chartreuse, and the rest. We're confident that young artists, writers, and musicians will love discovering the greens inside the green as much as we do. (Ages 6 and older) --Emilie Coulter

From Publishers Weekly

NPR commentator Nordine eschews "pure" color in this rainbow of idiosyncratic poems, which began as a series of radio ads for paint. Each two-page spread concerns one inexact hue, from a variation on blue ("As sure as there's azure, it's sure to be true/ azure is bored with just being blue") to an account of "the silly old color/ that lives next to red/ the one that is orangely out of its head." Nordine introduces a frustrated chartreuse that wants to "let green or yellow take over," an "old old old old lady" known as lavender, magenta the gossip columnist and a controversial shade called flesh ("flesh, as a color, is about as close to a problem/ as a color can get," he explains, noting the range of shades "varying from complexion to complexion"). Drescher (Runaway Opposites) interprets the free-(color)wheeling verse in multimedia collages. He scribbles outside the lines, even when painting on strictly lined graph paper, and he populates the pages with tentacled monsters and misshapen, childlike drawings of people. The eccentric imagery and unpredictable poetic meter suit the colors' wild diversity; haphazard blends of yellow and blue go to prove that "there's so many different greens inside of green." Nordine and Drescher disdain straight-from-the-tube certainty; casting Roy G. Biv aside, they playfully consider the many shades of gray. This one's for more sophisticated readers, preferably those who have dabbled in colors themselves. All ages. (Mar.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 32 pages
• Publisher: Harcourt Children's Books; 1st edition (March 6, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0152015841
• ISBN-13: 978-0152015848
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 7.7 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,075,755 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Chartreuse Began To Tremble Just Thinking Of The Trouble Rhubarb Could Make...", August 10, 2010

By 

Robert I. Hedges - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Colors (Hardcover)

Ken Nordine, the originator of "word jazz," NPR commentator, and Chicago fixture, has an unbelievably rich voice that makes his musings come alive. I have loved his classic "Colors" CD from the first time I heard it (and I recommend you buy it at once) but had a hard time imagining it in book form without his voice saying the words. I shouldn't have worried. Although nominally aimed at children, the book is beautiful, whimsical, funny, and educational for kids.

In the book, as on the CD, Ken goes through colors in the spectrum, giving each a persona with humorous quirks. Green can be envious (of course,) orange is the silliest color and is by far the most fun, burgundy is fat and drowsy, while purple is all about dignity. These colors and many more are imaginatively rendered in words and in peculiar illustrations by Henrik Drescher, and are sure to delight anyone who revels in the offbeat. I think of it as sort of "Richard Scarry meets Jerry Garcia," and I love it.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A book for children and adults!, March 17, 2002

By 

cdkscully "cdkscully" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Colors (Hardcover)

I was first introduced to the sounds of Ken Nordine at a concert (The Barenaked Ladies) during their "Maroon" tour. The concert opened up with a spoken word/song called "Maroon." The voice sounded familiar but I couldn't quite place it. I found out it was the famous Ken Nordine from his "Colors" CD. I immediately found it on amazon.com and found that there was a children's book that went along with the CD. Now I don't have children, but since I love Nordine's work, I felt that I should buy the book along with the CD. I am not sorry I did! I don't care how old you are; everyone will enjoy this book and the illustrations.

The book focuses on these colors:

Green ("smack dab in the middle of the spectrum")
Yellow ("you know how green can be - didn't want yellow in")
Azure ("azure is bored with just being blue")
Black ("as the ace of spades is")
Gray ("absolute gray is the perfect gray")
White ("that the whitest white that white can be white")
Lavender ("lady lavender in the indigo house by the purple wood")
Orange ("only one color I think is much fun and that's orange")
Chartreuse ("chartreuse began to tremble just thinking of the trouble rhubarb could make")
Burgundy ("burgundy is fat, sorry to be so blunt but that's burgundy")
Flesh ("which, pure and simple is colorcentric thinking, popular in some corners")
Purple ("Purple, all dignity, all pomp, all put-on")
Olive ("olive, poor thing, sits and thinks that it's drab")
Magenta ("you know how witty and well connected magenta is")
Turquoise ("don't you know what effect you're having on everything? see the flash of you...turquoise...there...")

If you can, purchase the CD with this book. The book is difficult to read since the words go around the page in a fashion where it's hard to follow. I had no trouble following the words in the book while playing the CD. The one thing children will love is that the book is colorful and fun to look at.

6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars nice surprise, May 15, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Colors (Hardcover)

My 7 yr. old daughter picked up this book in our local store and INSISTED I buy it, which is something she rarely does. I did buy it, and when I read it to her (it has rather sophisticated vocabulary for young readers) I loved it too. It's an interesting, graphic format, kind of "postmodern" and fun!