Adventures of Three Colors

by Annette Tison, Talus Taylor

A young boy discovers that with the three colors left in his paintbox he can concoct a diversity of hues

Genres: Childrens

36 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1971

Reviews

[Maria · Rating 3 out of 5]

The best part of this book on mixing colors is the fact that it includes overhead transparencies. Yes, you heard me right, TRANSPARENCIES. The author uses different mixtures of blue, yellow, pink, white, and black to demonstrate how colors mix to create new colors. As an added bonus, Tison overlay colored animals on top of colored animals to create a third colored animal (blue seal + pink flamingo = purple turtle). OK maybe this is one of those books you have to see in person to understand. But I always thought it was magical as a kid. And informative. My husband, who is pretty much the smartest person I know, still asks me what primary colors make up secondary colors. And this is the perfect book to answer those questions.

[Johanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favourite books as a child, full of fun, transparencies, color theory and a lovely grumpy little dog... It is teaching color theory without being dry or anything, and as soon as the child is able to handle paper pages its old enough for this book!

Do explain about CMY vs. RGB, though, before going into the reenactment!

[Leslie]

My very favorite children’s book!

[Siobhan]

This book was second hand even when I started reading it, and my copy is pretty battered and well loved. The book tells the story of a boy, Herbie, and his dog, Angelo, as they set out to make amazing art after seeing a rainbow, but have only three colors of paint, pink, blue, and yellow. Then the book shows why it was so well read in my house; some of the pages are transparent plastic with different colors that over lay the next page, making a new color and a new picture when looked at on top of the next picture. A blue elephant overlays a yellow dog, and a green fish become visible as the two overlap. As the book goes on, the pictures get more complex, and the colors that are made are more and more diverse, until the end of the book, which shows a color tree of all the colors Herbie made from just pink, blue, and yellow, and it is kind of amazing how many different colors there are. I think this book would be very fun to read before an art project, getting the kids to try to make new colors out of the ones they have. I admit, it might be a bit messy, so maybe a better activity for an older bunch.

[Cws]

JENF-Tis

[Dree · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my childhood faves.