Red is a Dragon: A Book of Colors

by Roseanne Thong, Grace Lin (Illustrator)

Discover shades of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and more as a little girl finds color in all sorts of everyday things. Many of the featured objects are Asian in origin, others universal: red is the dragon in the Chinese New Year parade, green is a bracelet made of jade, and yellow are the taxis she sees on her street. With rich, boisterous illustrations and colors that leap off the page, this concept picturebook will brighten every child's day!

Genres: Picture Books, Childrens, China, Cultural, Storytime, Asia, Dragons

40 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Also writes as Roseanne Greenfield Thong.

Reviews

[La Coccinelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm kind of underwhelmed. This book of colours shows them off well enough, but I wasn't crazy about the illustrations (some are fine, but in others the people are drawn in a style that looks too simple and almost... I don't know... incomplete?) and the rhyming text is really clunky in places. The whole book has a Chinese flavour, highlighting objects in various colours (there's a bit of a glossary at the back, explaining what some things are: dumplings, silk fans, bottle gourds, etc.). However, since I just read the delightful Goldy Luck and the Three Pandas --which also explained a bit about Chinese cultural symbols--Red Is a Dragon had a lot of live up to. Unfortunately, it didn't quite get there.

Quotable moment:

[Marigold Bookhound · Rating 5 out of 5]

All the colors of the rainbow and more are on display as a child goes about their day to day activities. Red is a dragon in a parade for Chinese new year; green are bottle gourds; orange are crabs on the beach. Delightful compositions make up the bright illustrations, which clearly illustrate the prose. I felt lively and cheerful reading this book.

[Atsupui Dogbla]

I think that this book is written like a poem for young children. There are rhymes used that are fascinating young children; reading this story to them may help them have fun. It's very good for beginners: toddlers.

[Peacegal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Colors are identified and celebrated, with a special emphasis on the imagery of Chinese culture.

[Jennifer Orosco · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved how the illustrations are somewhat traditional to illustrations in Chinese folk stories.

[Alison Reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

A refreshing addition to books about colors - who wants to read about another red apple when you could read about a red dragon? The plot isn't complex; A young girl finds colors all around in her everyday Chinese culture. Despite its seeming simplicity, its a pleasure to read with a rolling rhythm and bright illustrations.

Both Roseanne Thong and Grace Lin have other delightful books worth checking out. I particularly like Grace Lin's "Dim Sum for Everyone" and Roseanne Thong's "Green is a Chile Pepper." They also collaborated on "Round is a Mooncake" which is a book on shapes using examples influenced by Chinese culture. Their works are an easy way to expose your child to some different cultures while also working on colors and shapes.

[Tyler Wansack · Rating 4 out of 5]

Red is a Dragon: A Book of Colors is a wonderful story about a Chinese girl who finds color all around her life in her Chinese culture. She compares the colors to her Asian culture. I think this would be a great book to read to children who are learning colors for many reasons. First being that it teaches you all of the colors and second because of the Asian cultural aspect and because of that it teaches diversity. I enjoyed how the text was rhyming, making it an easy read. I also enjoyed how colorful and bright the pictures were. It will really draw in a kid’s attention. There is a glossary in the back of the book which makes it informative.

[Michelle Boyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

A children’s book that aims to teach colors, but from the unique perspective of associating these colors with traditional Chinese cultural items and artifacts. The book also includes a glossary of Chinese words at the back to help young readers further understand some of the objects that are discussed in the book.

I appreciate the cultural elements that are woven throughout the book. While they can tend to fall into the 5Fs category (food, festivals, etc.) there are realistic objects that a Chinese child would be coming into contact with that juxtapose well with Americanized objects depicted in the book.

[Krystal Shoop-Hardin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This beautiful book honors the "Chinese culture" with impressive illustrations of rainbow colors and rhyming text. There is also an informative glossary in the back of the book. A little girl discovers the rainbow of colors in the world around her in this vibrant picture book. This book would be good for teaching colors, shapes, different cultures, Asian life, and poetry. As always, Grace Lin's Art work in pictures is outstanding!

[Renee · Rating 4 out of 5]

The rhyming poems and illustrations are culturally authentic and words that may be unfamiliar to children like ‘lychee’ are defined at the end.

Positively reviewed in SLJ and Horn Book

[Sydney Ossege · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book to correlate the colors with everyday objects! This book uses a culture unknown to most to describe the culture of a Chinese American little girl and her adventure/discovery of all the colors that are out there. This could be used in a classroom to celebrate Chinese New Years as it shows a dragon and its vibrant colors, or be used to help the classroom correlate the difference of colors and the commonalities that are found between cultures and colors (such as taxis being yellow).

[Cassie Busch · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is great for anyone trying to learn colors. It has a little girl finding color in everyday life, a lot of the things are related to her culture, Chinese. There is a glossary in the book to also help the reader learn new words while learning the colors. It also compares the Chinese culture colors to the Asian culture colors. While the book is about colors, it also shows some of what the culture is like in these places.

[Chantel Bahn · Rating 5 out of 5]

LOVED this. Not just a boring book about colors, but it incorporates a theme and even a multicultural aspect. This is so much more educational than just reading "an apple is red" with pictures to a child. I am so excited about books like this that go above and beyond surface level. I know it seems dramatic, but books for such beginning level learners should ALL be like this. This book deserves the award it has.

[Paige Freisen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book Red is a Dragon: A Book of Colors has pictures that are all drawn out to resemble an Asia family. The book has pictures showing them doing different activities in their culture for example celebrating Chinese New Year with the dragon and dancing but also with them going to the beach and playing in the sand to show that even though their culture is different they still do the same activities that other people do in their lives.

[Christy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Discover shades of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and more as a little girl finds color in all sorts of everyday things. Many of the featured objects are Asian in origin, others universal: red is the dragon in the Chinese New Year parade, green is a bracelet made of jade, and yellow are the taxis she sees on her street. With rich, boisterous illustrations and colors that leap off the page, this concept picturebook will brighten every child's day!

[Hanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Golden standard for a children's storybook.

Perfect words starting with the title all the way thru the other colors rounding out the rainbow.

The illustrations are gorgeous with clear wide swirl patterns on the clothing.

I love how all the limited choice of words presented as rhyming poems.

Once again, this capture my attention and got me going back thru the book just looking at the pictures.

[Calista · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a children’s book about color. Most of the things they use for color are Asian like lychees and so on. So you know I enjoyed that part of it.

I enjoy Grace Lin’s work and she is the artist here. She just has a style. You can tell this is her work. I love her bold colors. Simple and effective.

A nice book for kids learning colors. It will be fun seeing different things than they are used too.

[Cindy Sarnowski · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book of classic colors. Examples of a variety of objects are used for each color. The book educates the reader to asian items and characters. The illustrations are full of rich colors in broad strokes. At the end of the book, there is a glossary with definitions of all of the newly introduced terms.

[Michelle Matash · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great book for ELL learners to use if they are trying to understand the English Language. It give descriptions of multiple things on the page that are all the same color. It introduces words by using color trends. It can be used for all ages. It also has a word bank at the back of the book to tell definitions of unfamiliar vocabulary words.

[Julia McMenamin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed how this book is about colors but the objects Thong uses are of Asian origin so that readers from this origin can relate the objects and the colors more. It is important that young readers can identify with their own experiences in order to learn. I would definitely put this book in my classroom for it is important to have a diverse selection for students to learn from.

[Jessica Tirone · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like this book and how the illustrations tell the story along with the words. After reading through some of the comments I noticed that so people said they didn't like this story because of the unfamiliar words, that is the whole point of this book. To make the students aware of words they may not use everyday but other people might.

[Abby Rowe · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is great for young children. It shows Chinese New Year concepts and traditions while involving the universal realm of color to teach young ones. It's an awesome way to incorporate multiculturalism and basic concepts.

[Tori Augustine · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this story the little girl discovers a lot about all the colors filled throughout the story. She compares all the colors to something special in her culture. It is really a great story to introduce children to her culture.

[Carolyn Jeziorski · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a nice read aloud about colors that features Asian characters. We read this aloud, and the colors on some pages (the yellow/orange) were confusing. The kids had a hard time guessing the white theme as well.

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a simple yet pleasant book. Perhaps a little too basic for my 4-year-old son as evidenced by lack of desire to read it repeatedly like some titles. That said, I enjoyed the art and the content and would be happy to read it again should the occasion arise.

[Drew Slanina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book. I think that the illustration is the most important part of the book.it shows the students the color, and in English it describes what the color of each object is. This is mainly important for students that are new to learning English.

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of the items listed in the rhymes are no included in the pictures making it difficult for a small child to associate the words with the actual items. Better for older kids (4+) who can appreciate the beautiful art and story.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Colors from the world of an Asian-American child. There were a couple pages that were kind of confusing (like calling crabs orange when they looked red on the page), but overall a nice color book from an API cultural perspective.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very simple rhyming text describing different colors. There's no real story, but the illustrations are excellent. I have no idea why a few colors get 2 spreads and other colors only get 1 spread, but this is a solid addition to a story time about colors.

[Jessica Judd · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was looking for great multicultural books for my classroom and remembered this book. Grace Lin is one of my favorite illustrators and she did not disappoint. The text will be enjoyed by my little ones as they enjoy a good rhyming story.