A Book about Color(Hardback) - 2010 Edition

by Mark Gonyea

Beginning with the six houses on Color Street—red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple—and concluding with the introduction of the color wheel, in this follow-up to A Book About Design Mark Gonyea explains how artists visualize and choose colors. A Book about Color uses simple building blocks of color, shape, and design to introduce young artists to the world of color theory.

A Book About Color is a 2011 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Picture Books, Childrens, Design

Hardcover

First published April 13, 2010

About the author

Born in northern New York seven years before I saw Star Wars for the first time. While spending the better portion of my early life watching tv, going to movies and playing video games, little did I realize this was to be the essential ground work for a career in cartooning, graphic design and kids books.

Reviews

[Christine Turner]

PLN __ Inventive Minds
STEAM -- Discovery with Miss Christine

General Note: Uses the simple building blocks of color, shape, and design to introduce young artists to the world of color theory.
Subject: Color in art -- Juvenile literature

[Hailey Corman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book could guide an art teacher on lessons. There’s different chapters starting at more simple and ending at more advanced. An art teacher could use the chapters to guide student learning about different art theories. Great book, also great to read in a kindergarten classroom about colors!

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fabulous!

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A boldly colored, concise guide to the basics of color.
I like to pick one chapter to use during my color storytimes.

[Miss Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

An elementary and up guide to color from the primaries all the way to black and white and many adventures along the way. Clear pictures and explanations.

[Carina · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm five and I picked out this book because I like colors. This reminded me of some of the things I've learned about mixing colors in my kindergarten art class.

[Whole And · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent resource for learning about primary, secondary analogous, harmonious, saturation and more to do with colour. Simply laid out with bold images and colours.

We used this book alongside art courses to reinforce what we were learning.

[Tasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book approaches color as a street with houses. The houses for the primary colors are bigger than those for the secondary colors, setting them apart. The book then goes on to talk about the meaning of colors and how one color can mean different things. Warm and cool colors are discussed along with the way they appear in a picture. Complementary colors are explained by lining the houses up on opposite sides of the street, the houses next to each other are analogous colors. The book finishes with saturation of colors, and white and black. Visually interesting and using a great analogy for learning about colors, this book is a treat.

Gonyea has created a book that really demonstrates aspects of color. His use of a street and house analogy works very well, keeping the primary houses large throughout the book, using the same street design to show complementary and analogous colors. His use of strong graphical images and clean design make this a book that children and adults will enjoy using. It goes well beyond a book for toddlers about color, making it a welcome choice for young artists.

Recommended for art rooms and library collections, this book is best in the hands of artists or those learning about art. A strong nonfiction book appropriate for ages 5-9.

[Darshana Khiani · Rating 3 out of 5]

Explains color theory in a simple, easy-to-read format. The publisher has this book rated as ages 9+. However, I feel the simplicity of the book in text and pictures would lend itself better to a younger audience. The book starts off with the basic concepts of primary and secondary colors. Next it cheerfully describes how different colors can represent different things. The book then builds on those concepts to explain how artists choose colors in order to move pictures to the foreground or background. The book also discusses saturation, the color wheel, and complementary colors.

Click here for the original review and activity ideas at Flowering Minds.

[Felicia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a great way to introduce colors and the color wheel. The book does have some more advanced vocabulary that would be for more for 3rd grade and up but the book uses illustrations to show an example of these harder words. This would be helpful for the students so that they can understand the concept better. This book can range throughout all elementary grades in my opinion just depending on the sections you read out of it.

[Niena Ramirez · Rating 5 out of 5]

I chose the book, "A Book About Color" by Mark Gonyea because it would be a great book to use for a color lesson. I would use this book in any elementary classroom or even when I am babysitting younger children. It is a chapter book so each chapter could be a lesson. The author did a great job with description words and pictures for each color. I highly recommend to have this book in the classroom.

[Salsabrarian]

A child's introduction to colors and not just "this is red, this is blue." It outlines in simple terms what are the primary colors, which colors are complementary or analagous, which are cool and warm, and the meanings that colors have. A concise and eye-catching presentation for future artists and designers! Companion to "A Book About Design."

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another library display book that blew us away and was read on repeat. Simple, clear, wonderful illustrations. I learned a lot and felt it was written to be understood instead of overly complex.

*Dec 2022 reread: A little less in love with select illustrations but overall still really like how the concepts are presented. Much easier to understand than many other color books we've read.

[Bayleigh Garrett · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very good book. It is full of facts and bright colorful pages. This would be an excellent book for any art lesson. It teaches about all aspects of color and is easy to understand. I would recommend this for ages 6-9.

[Andrea · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really like this book. It explains the concepts simply and visually and my 6 year old art lover can read most of the words. I like the way it showed the same picture twice to explain saturation and value and the book is a good size.

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved the concept of colors being in a neighbor.

[Tamara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mark Gonyea, will you be my boyfriend?

(This would be a wonderful resource for a kid's art class on color.)

[Teri · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars My kids really enjoy this book about color--learning about warm and cool, primary and secondary colors etc.

[Abbie Miller · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cute kids book about colors. Also very well illustrated, which I suppose would be important. This book went into more detail about the color wheel and saturation.

[Ashley]

A bright, informative book for students to learn about the primary and secondary colors.
This book can be used as part of an art lesson (perhaps an integrated lesson).

[Sawsan · Rating 4 out of 5]

quick, entertaining and informative with a good set of nice illustrations.. I enjoyed my walk through the street of colors!

[Janette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surprisingly concise and good for young ones.

[MaryJane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent overall graphic design!

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very neat introduction to color.

[Karyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent informational book for preschool. Simple and yet lots of information.

[Holly · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great introduction to the color wheel for kids of all ages.