Customer Reviews

Yellow & Pink

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Our five year has hundreds of picture books. But, every night since we purchased this book, she's asked us to read it again. And when we're done, she yells, "Again!"

We're happy to oblige, because it's a delightful book. Steig manages to capture complex, quirky moods and expressions in his marionette characters with an unparalleled economy and simplicity. The dialogue is witty and urbane, without leaving the preschooler behind. The story touches delicately on the perennial and perhap most interesting philosophical question we can ask: Why are we here?

I never thought I'd approach the subject of divine creation vs. evolution when I read this book to my preschooler and Kindergartener in a coffee shop. But, they had a lot to say (and question) about our existence after I read them this book! William Steig does it again -- impressing both parents and children with his witty but simple style that takes on challenging subject matter.

It is a fun book. It isn't preachy. It isn't overt. It isn't a lot of things, but it will make your kids think. If you are of the evolution variety, it is a good opportunity to show the differences between this situation and nature. If you are of the creationist variety, it is a good opportunity to show the similarities between this situation and nature. But to dislike this book because because you think it is propaganda? That's silly, and probably indicates that we shouldn't examine issues critically, no matter what we believe. I enjoyed it. Your kids will too.

Yellow & Pink is a delightful book about two toys questioning how they came to be. The author uses humor and common sense, making a great argument for intelligent design.

William Steig introduces an ingenious twist into the old creationist parable of the complex, functional machine (a pocketwatch, a jumbo jet) that might or might not have assembled itself by an astronomically improbable accident.

The twist is this: the machine in this story is a sentient humanoid. There are actually two of them, respectively painted yellow and pink. They are marionettes, like Pinocchio, complete with all human faculties except the faculty of reproduction. As my three-year-old pointed out, they are essentially Robots. The pair engages in a philosophical discussion about whether or not they could have "just happened." Defending this hypothesis, the yellow marionette speculates at length about an astronomically improbable series of morphogenetic accidents, glibly dismisses mysteries of their physiological perfection, and ultimately admits that the details of their origin can never be known. Then their Creator comes along, picks them up and carries them away. Apparently now both totally convinced that they "evolved," they don't even realize who He is...

The genius of this retelling is that the intelligently designed and created artifact is here granted the gift of humanity. This reminds us of what we are really talking about: yes, we are having this emotionally charged debate about the origin of Man (and by the way, of other organisms). Casting the artifact as a mannikin, moreover, serves dramatically to focus attention on a paradoxical contrast: the marionettes are at once far, far simpler than organisms (far simpler even than a pocketwatch) and far, far too complex to have happened (twice, it is pointed out) by accident. This double contrast poignantly illustrates astronomical scales of complexity and improbability.

But what is most clever about Steig's marionettes is the sole feature that distinguishes them from humans: they lack the faculty of reproduction. Pinocchio did not develop from a single cell derived from parents who developed from a cell derived from their parents who developed, et cetera. He couldn't have; he has no self-replicating DNA. This difference between organisms and artifacts is precisely what is ignored by the parable of the pocketwatch or Boeing 747, and this ignored difference is what makes that parable a classic assault on a straw man.

(By the way: in his book Climbing Mount Improbable, Richard Dawkins goes deeper into the implications of this elementary difference between living creatures and artifacts, explaining how--because creatures reproduce--evolution can build a complex machine by small, reasonable increments.)

The story ends with an unanswered question. "Who is this guy?" asks Yellow about their human Creator as he carries them away. "I have no idea" replies Pink. This exchange echoes the book's first lines of dialogue, in which Yellow and Pink wonder who they, themselves, are. Their next question, of course, is how they came to be. Well, we grownup readers know exactly how they were created. By contrast, we--that is, those of us who believe in Intelligent Design--do not have the foggiest idea how we ourselves were created. The leading hypotheses are, I think, (1) it was done supernaturally (essentially by magic) and (2) it was done by a technology sufficiently advanced as to be indistinguishable from magic (to paraphrase Asimov). So if Yellow and Pink inquire about the origin of their creator, we can't help them--except to point, by vague analogy, to the means of their own manufacture. We were made by somebody who is more complex than we are. The intelligent marionettes might then ask us about the origin of OUR Creator.

We see suddenly that it is one of those stories-within-a-story. The puppet is a person designed by a person...designed by a Person? The truth of the puppets' origin is idiotically trivial. A guy wants to make a couple of puppets; takes a few pieces of wood, a few simple tools, some paint; makes them. Do we dare consider that the analogous explanation of our origin is, likewise, idiotically trivial?

Will readers ask these questions? Maybe. My three-year-old has already asked me who made the Creator. "Good question!" I replied to him. At this stage his mother and I are encouraging him to believe in a loving, omnipresent Creator, and also in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. With regard to his own ideas about Monsters, we humor him, and assure him of his absolute safety.

Like all decent works of art, Yellow and Pink can be appreciated at different levels. Like the great religious texts, it can be taken to support diametrically opposing points of view. A literal, superficial reading will bolster the preconceived opinions of many folks who tend toward literal interpretation of their favorite religious stories. Certainly this story can be used as a tool of creationist indoctrination. This will work, I think, as long as people go on failing to appreciate the crucial difference between themselves and puppets.

This is a terrific book for teaching a complicated subject. Cute illustrations and texts that make both children and adults question the theory of evolution. Your children can be taught logic and discernment at such a young age with this book. Highly recommended to all. A great introduction to intelligent design for any age. I have read this both to my 4 year old and 8 year old. Both enjoyed it and can see the fallacies of evolution.

Great lesson for both children and adults - all things being equal, the simplest solution is probably the best... a must read for everyone and their christian friends...

I loved the book. Try reading it aloud with an English accent. There is no mention of creation in this book, though the absurdity of evolution is obvious. The evolutionist faithful can see it clearly enough.

Every now and then a book comes along that touches the adult reader's heart just as much (or more!) than the child's. This is such a book.

Steig, in his notoriously witty way, gets around to the fact that it is more likely human beings were designed rather than evolved through millions of years. It isn't preachy, it isn't polemical. It is just two wooden dolls having a conversation with one another on the lawn. One of them is making a case that they could have gotten there through natural processes alone (i.e. a woodpecker bored their eye holes). And the other is not quite sure. In the end, (SPOILER ALERT!) the scruffy old designer pops out of his house to pick them up and bring them back in. It is climactic and anti-climactic at the same time, as "God" makes his appearance but neither of the dolls know who he is.

Perfect, sweet, ironic. The kids will love it (i.e. "Who is this guy?") and the adult reader will love it even more.

It's funny how people react to this book. As if Steig was simply offering a creationist view. That seems so, well, mistaken to say.

Yes, it is true, the two wooden puppets, named Yellow and Pink, do have a discussion that could loosely be portrayed as a Darwinist versus Creationist argument about where they came from. But the reasons for pointing a finger at the author's ideological position should end there.

After all, the ending might cast some doubt. The artist needs a haircut. He comes to pick them up, and they don't know who he is. He's a puppet-master and not one in whom one moves and has one's being. Not exactly the aha moment that seals the deal in favor of a loving God who creates the whole world for the benefit of the human.

These are puppets who became conscious, not organisms who evolved. Imagine the horror of realizing that one was a puppet in the hand of God. No free will. And with no free will, all is absurd or dictatorial.

No, I read the book as making fun of the whole debate. As if we could ever account for free will, for consciousness, by either position.

Imagination and language are lovely. There's your Steig.