Customer Reviews

Spicy Hot Colors: Colores Picantes

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

From ballet to books: Sherry Shahan is a dancer/author who in Spicy Hot Colors is passionate about rhythm and here she incorporates the rhythmic elements of Latin American culture into a superbly presented bilingual coverage of colors. Illustrator Paula Barragan creates the colors, while jazzy poetry uses English and Spanish to reveal colors to the very young. A dancing, a haunting presentation for young readers.

Spicy Hot Colors is a picture book teaching the names of colors in Spanish. Each color is given a full page spread. The name of the color is mentioned in English and then the spanish word is listed as well. In the back there is a vocabulary list for words that kids might not know the meanings of. Also is a helpful pronunciation guide for the Spanish words that are listed in the book.
The illustrations were bright and bold. They went well with the text.
I would recommend this book to educators who are teaching basic Spanish. The book was very helpful in home school while learning the names of colors in Spanish

Whether the fault lies with the original concept or with the printer, this book is a big disappointment. Beginning with the first page, 'rojo/red', which should have been vibrant, is a muddy mix-up. There may be red in the illustrations, but against the backgrounds, it comes out orange? ochre? Who can tell? The 'orange/anaranjado' page is a bit clearer, but doesn't present much of a contrast with the 'red.' 'Yellow/amarillo' is a pretty page, with subtle variations of the color. The 'green/verde' page is lovely: the shades of olive, forest and lime work well together. Similarly, the 'purple/morado; page, with several depths of color succeed against the contrasting backgrounds. 'Blue/azul' almost makes it, except that it is weakened by the predominance of other colors: not a teaching page, that's for sure. The great variations on brown are pleasing to the eye, but 'pardo' as the translation of 'brown' is unfortunate. 'Café' or 'marrón' might have been better choices. Then comes the 'black/negro' page. What a failure! How hard would it have been to present this color?! Yes, black does appear on the page, but against the murky backgrounds it loses all its power. 'Black/negro' is illustrated much better on the following 'white/blanco' page with its great dancing skeletons. If the colors had been done more skillfully it wouldn't really matter that the text is so forced and useless. (Blue as paper dragons/Boogie-woogie/Swing! What possible connection is there between paper dragons and boogie-woogie?)
It's sad that the bold work of the artist, Paula Barragán, was so mishandled.

Great book. It has rythem and is billingual, we enjoy reading this one over and over.