What Color Is the Wind?

by Anne Herbauts (creator)

What Color is the Wind?  is an interactive sensory book for kids with beautiful illustrations and a simple, engaging story. 
A blind child questions all he encounters––a dog, wolf, elephant, mountain, bird, stream, and tree––about the color of the wind. Each responds differently, with a shape, color, smell, texture, or idea. Each page displays a visual and tactile palette of cutouts, textures, and the pictures that tell the story. Tactile and prodigious in the materials used, this book engages the reader fully, bodily, in an exploration through which they discover the wind as smell, taste, movement, sound, and color. A staple of nature discovery camps and teaching rubrics about the natural world, this is a book through which all children can immerse in their senses and discover much delight! 
A graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels, Anne Herbauts creates an original world within each of her books. Awake to the richness of the natural world, endlessly curious, and rigorous in her work, Anne has written and illustrated over twenty books, and has received numerous awards in both Europe and Japan.

Genres: Picture Books, Childrens, Poetry, Nature

48 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2011

Reviews

[Betsy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m going to have a hard time of it when my kids grow up. When I had them I swore up, down and sideways that I wouldn’t turn into the kind of blogger that declares that a book is good or bad, based solely on the whims of my impertinent offspring. For the most part, I’ve kept that promise. I review picture books outside of their influence, though I’m always interested in their opinions. Indeed, these opinions, and the sharp eyes that inform them, are sometimes not what I’d expect at all. So while I’ve never changed my opinion from liking a book to not liking it just because it didn’t suit my own particular kids’ tastes, I have admittedly found a new appreciation for other books when the children were able to spot things that I did not. What Color Is the Wind? is a pretty good example of this. I read the book at work, liked it fine, and brought it home for a possible review. My daughter then picked it up and proceeded to pretty much school me on what it contained, front to finish. Had I noticed the Braille on the cover? No. Did I see that the main character’s eyes are closed the whole time? No. How about the tactile pages? Did you notice that you can feel almost all of them? No. For a book that may look to some readers as too elegant and sophisticated to count as a favored bedtime story, think again. In this book Anne Herbauts proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that a distinct European style is engaging to American children when their parents give it half a chance. Particularly when tactile elements are involved.

“We can’t see the wind, / we hear what it brings. / We can’t hear the wind, / we see what it brings.” The book begins with a question. A boy, his eyes closed, walks behind the cutout of a house. “What color is the wind? asks the little giant.” As he walks along, various plants, birds, animals, and inanimate objects offer answers. A wolf says the wind’s color is “the dark smell of the forest” while a window disagrees and says it’s “the color of time.” Everything that answers the little giant has a different feel on the page. The stream feels like consecutive ripples emanating from a dropped pebble, the roots of an apple tree like long, thin rivulets. At last the little giant encounters something that he senses is enormous. He asks his question and an enormous giant replies, “It is everything at once. This whole book.” He flips the book’s pages with his thumb so that they fly, and you the reader do the same, feeling the wind the book is capable of producing with its thick, lustrous pages. The color of the wind. The wind of this book.

The Kirkus review journal said that this book was, “ ‘The blind men and the elephant’ reworked into a Zen koan” and then proceeded to recommend it for 9-11 year-olds and adults. I'm fairly certain I disagree with almost every part of that. Now here’s the funny part. I didn’t read this review before I read the book. I also didn’t read the press release that was sent to me with it. When I read a book I like to be surprised by it in some way. This is usually a good thing, but once in a while I can be a bit dense and miss the bigger picture. As I mentioned before, I completely missed the fact that this book was an answer to a blind child who had asked Anne Herbauts the titular question. I just thought it was cool that the book was so much fun to touch. Embossing, debossing, die-cuts, lamination, and all kinds of surfaces give the book the elements that make it really pop. As I read it in the lunchroom at work, my co-workers would peer over my shoulders to coo at what they saw. All well and good, but would a kid be interested too? Kirkus says they'd have to be at least nine to grasp its subtleties.

Obviously my 5-year-old daughter likes the book but she’s just one kid. She is not a representative for her species (so to speak). That said, this book just drills home the advantage that physical books have over their electronic counterparts: the sensation of touch. Play with a screen all day if you like, but you will never be able to move your fingers over these raised dots of rain or the rough bark of a tree’s trunk. As children become more immersed in the electronic, they become more enamored of tactile books. The sensation of paper on skin has yet to be replicated by our smooth as silk screens. And this will prove true with kids on the younger end of the scale. I'll agree with Kirkus about the adult designation, though. When I worked for New York Public Library there was a group of special needs adults that would come in that were in need of tactile picture books. We would be asked if we had any on hand that we could hand over to them in some way. There were a few, but our holdings were pretty limited (though I do remember a particularly keen tactile version of The Very Hungry Caterpillar that proved to be a big hit). Those kids would have loved this book, but children of all ages, and all abilities, would feel the same way about it. Kids are never too old for tactile picture books. As such, you could use this book with Kindergartners as well as fifth graders. Little kids will like the fun pictures. Older kids may be inspired by the words as well.

“Mom,” said my daughter as we went down the stairs for her post-reading, pre-brushing, nighttime snack. “Mom, you know the wind doesn’t have a color, right?” My child is a bit of a literalist. She’s the kid who knew early on that magic wasn’t real and once told me at the age of three that, “If ‘please’ is a magic word, it doesn’t exist.” So to read an entire book, based on the premise of seeing a color that couldn’t possibly be real, was a stretch for her. Remember, we read this entire book without really catching on that the little giant was blind. I countered that it was poetry, really. Colors were just as much about what they looked like as what they felt like. I asked her what blue made her feel, and red. Then I applied that to the emotions we feel about with the wind, which wasn’t really an analogy that held much water, but she was game to hear me out. “It’s poetry”, I said again. “Words that make you feel something when you read them.” So, as she had her snack, she had me read her some poetry. We’ve been reading poetry with her snack every night since. So for all that the book could be seen to be a straightforward picture book, to me it’s as much an introduction to poetry as anything else.

As for the art, I’ll admit that the combination of the style of art, the image on the cover, and the fact that the book is softcover and not hardcover (a cost-saving measure for what must be a very expensive title for Enchanted Lion Books to publish) did not immediately appeal to me. There’s no note to explain what the medium is and if I were to guess I’d say we were looking at crayons, mixed media, thick paints, colored pencils, ink blots, pen-and-inks, and more. Ironically, I really began to gravitate to the art when the little giant wasn’t stealing my focus. Nothing is intricately detailed, except perhaps the anatomy of honeybees or the raised and bumpy parts of the book. At the same time, for a book that celebrates touch, poetry, and physical sensation, the colors are often bright and lush. Whether it’s the blue watercolors of rain over trees or the hot orange that emanates from the page like a sun, Herbauts is simultaneously rendering illustrations obsolete with the unique format of What Color is the Wind? and celebrating their visual extremes.

I tend to give positive reviews to books that exceed my expectations. That’s just the nature of my occupation. And while I do believe that there are elements to this book that could be clearer or that there must have been a book jacket choice they could have chosen that was more appealing than the one you see here, otherwise I think this little book is a bit of a wonder. Deeply appealing to children of all ages, to say nothing of the adults out there, with so many uses, and so many applications. It reminds me of the old picture books by Bruno Munari that weren’t afraid to try new things with the picture book format. To get a little crazy. I don’t think we’ll suddenly see a big tactile picture book craze sweep the nation or anything, but maybe this book will inspire just one other publisher to try something a little different and to take a risk. Could be worth it. There’s nothing else like this book out there today. More’s the pity.

For ages 5 and up.

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lovely and unique picture book I found out about from Maria Popova’s Brainpickings blog on twitter. In a way, it is pretty ordinary in suggesting that we pay attention to how differently we all experience the world, but this is a multi-sensory book, with braille, with different textures and cutouts throughout. The format is very sophisticated, one I invited my middle school kids to take a look at, and it is challenging even for them. It’s not comfortable predictable, from page to page; there are very different styles, quick sketching, watercolors, painting, dense pages, spare pages.

A blind child asks what color the wind is. He gets different answers from those he asks. The wolf says the wind is “the dark smell of the forest.” The bees say the wind is “the color of sunshine.” The rain says nothing! But the bees say “the color of sunshine.” At the end the child reaches a giant who says that the wind is the color of all of these things.

It reminded me a bit of The Black Book of Colors, also about thinking what a blind child experiences; my review here:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...


Here, look at it, even for 30 seconds and see some of it and see what I mean (and even read a full review from Popova:

https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/10...

[Tasha · Rating 5 out of 5]

A child who is blind walks through the world asking what color the wind is. He gets very different answers from those he asks. The wolf says the wind is “the dark smell of the forest.” For the bees, the wind is “the color of sunshine.” The apple tree sees the wind as “a sugary color” while its roots view it as “the color of sap and pomegranates.” By the end of the book, the child reaches a giant who says that the wind is the color of all of these things. Then readers are encouraged to flip the pages of the book, creating a rainbow of colors along the way and a breeze of wind too.

Herbauts’ book is exceptional. She has created a book filled with the senses. She incorporates touch into her illustrations, taste and smell are in many of the colors of the wind, and throughout there is a feel for the lack of vision and the increased vitality of the other senses. The imagery she matches with each character’s point of view is spot on. It’s done in a lush and lovely way that makes the experience of reading it intense and fascinating.

The illustrations have raised ridges in places that can be felt by the fingertips. They also have gloss on them to bring some of the tactile features out visually as well. Others are almost hidden until you run your fingers along them. The pages are filled with colors and playfulness with the child’s black boots walking along from page to page and other pages covered in raindrops or laundry.

Immensely beautiful, lush and wondrous, this picture book is a feast for all of the senses. Appropriate for ages 3-5.

[Ms. B · Rating 3 out of 5]

Whether readers understand this story about the little giant who wants to know what color the wind is, they will enjoy the textured pages that invite them to interact with the story. This was similar to Seven Blind Mice by Ed Young and Rumi's The Elephant in the Dark..

[Zoe · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is really surprising and special. It seems very simple - a small child asking different objects and animals about the colour of the wind - but the impact is disproportionately powerful. The pages are tactile, as well as beautifully painted. Their textures aren't always obvious - it takes a while to investigate them via touch, and at the end the book you just need to inhale it - I don't quite want to explain what I mean by that. There's something mysterious about the little giant meeting the big giant - it sounds like a child meeting an adult, but it feels like something bigger and much stranger than that. It's not often a picturebook makes me this emotional after just the first casual glance - but "What Colour is the Wind?" is a rather unusual book.

***
Oh, I just realised the little boy is blind.
And that the translator should be noted, of course - Claudia Zoe Bedrick.

[Abigail · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story follows a little giant boy, who I believed to be blind. He asks 'what colour is the wind?' and what follows is truly breathtaking.

This picture book was an experience. I was lucky enough to have this read to me by another student teacher which meant I was totally immersed in the story. My arms seemed to act of their own accord as my hands reached out to touch the pages, wanting to explore the textures.

Its a beautiful story which is accompanied by even better pictures. I'd say its fantastic for young children due to the sensory aspect (and fabulously thick, tear-resistant pages!) but also a good way of introducing children to inclusion topics and building empathy.

[Tara · Rating 4 out of 5]

A blind boy asks what color is the wind. The artwork is the star of this book.

[Mary Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an amazing book. It will pair well with The Black Book of Colors.

"Created through embossing, debossing, die-cuts, lamination, and a variety of surfaces, What Color is the Wind? provides the reader with an immersive experience of thought, feeling, and reading."

[Amelia · Rating 5 out of 5]

"But the bees are buzzing: the wind is the color of sunshine."

This book is the perfect example of an interactive picture book. Where the text--poetic and anaphoric--is beautiful in its own right, it is the illustrations where we gather further, more in-depth meaning. This book does not mention once that the little giant is blind, but the text asks us to ponder a question that those of us with sight think is an easy question to answer: what color is the wind? We know that the wind does not have a color, not really--but to someone who has a different way of navigating his world, this is not straightforward. We must rely on other senses. When the bees say the wind is the color of sunshine, we can assume that it's artistic in that sunshine also doesn't really have a color, but it also evokes a sense of warmth, the reminder of summer, the ability to relax.

More so, this is a tactile book. The illustrations offer a variety of collages and artistry, but the pages are embossed in certain places, allowing ridges, offering glosses. We don't get to only see buttons, we can feel them, too! The pages are cut out in some portions so that as we turn the page, a new meaning of the previous and next illustrations are altered.

And the best thing, I think, about this book, is because this book is not just for reading. Nor is it just for touching. The enormous giant, in response to little giant's question, says, "It is everything at once. This whole book. Then he takes the book and, thumb against its edge, he lets the pages fly." This is an invitation and forgiveness. Do not worry about creased pages or bent corners, Herbauts seems to say. This book invites new sensations, asks us to push our boundaries, hopes for us to ask impossible questions, permisses us to do what is normally not thought of as allowed.

A beautiful, enchanting book. Get it for your child, get it for yourself. It's an exploration in sensitivities for the curious.

[Justin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is built around the premise that sometimes when we want to define something that is abstract, we can't always find just one definition that gives us a true understanding. Instead, sometimes it's an experience or the journey to understand the abstract that gives us a better idea of what it is.

The child in this book is wanting to know the color of the wind. He travels around asking different people and objects what color is the wind. Of course, there's a different answer from each person he asks. This frustrates him until an adult explains to him that the wind can be all these colors; that the sum of all these colors IS the color of the wind.

Children tend to see the world as very binary. I think this book is a good challenge for a child's way of thinking in that it gets to see that many things in life are complicated and have many nuances. Sometimes the sum of its parts is what defines something.

I also think this is a great book for adolescents and adults in that it reminds them/us that even when we think we've figured out a concept like love and acceptance, there may be more to learn and maybe what we understand now isn't the "true" understanding.

Along with the great message, there's beautiful artwork that is fun to appreciate while you're reading the book.

[Justin Ferguson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is built around the premise that sometimes when we want to define something that is abstract, we can't always find just one definition that gives us a true understanding. Instead, sometimes it's an experience or the journey to understand the abstract that gives us a better idea of what it is.

The child in this book is wanting to know the color of the wind. He travels around asking different people and objects what color is the wind. Of course, there's a different answer from each person he asks. This frustrates him until an adult explains to him that the wind can be all these colors; that the sum of all these colors IS the color of the wind.

Children tend to see the world as very binary. I think this book is a good challenge for a child's way of thinking in that it gets to see that many things in life are complicated and have many nuances. Sometimes the sum of its parts is what defines something.

I also think this is a great book for adolescents and adults in that it reminds them/us that even when we think we've figured out a concept like love and acceptance, there may be more to learn and maybe what we understand now isn't the "true" understanding.

Along with the great message, there's beautiful artwork that is fun to appreciate while you're reading the book.

[Emily Sammartino · Rating 3 out of 5]

This story follows the journey of a blind child asking different people and things what color the wind is. They all give varying answers and by the end the reader realizes that everyone’s interpretation is different and that in the end we are all right. Everyone knows equally much about the color of the wind; the answer lies within the person answering the question. This is by far one of the coolest books I have ever read from the colorful and lively illustrations to the tactile element of the pages. I love this book because interpretation of the meaning and the message could be so many different things and its engaging and interactive for all ages.

[K · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was so novel to me. I enjoyed the different textures pressed into the pages, evoking the dog differently from the wolf, the elephant skin, the raindrops, and so on.

My fingertips were tingling a long time after I finished. The book actually activated my senses.

[C · Rating 3 out of 5]

Is this truly a children's book? It is beautiful and poetic but a bit out there for kids. Older kids.might enjoy it tied to lessons on poetry or visual mediums but I'd be surprised if any kids are asking for it at bedtime.

[Bo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Grandma's review: An adult book disguised as a children's book. Poetic. Lovely illustrations. Sweet message. 5 star.
Almost 5-year-old's review: "I don't like it" until he noticed the textures on each page. Then he was engaged. 3.5 star.

[Lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book gets 5 stars in artwork, with its textured pages, smears of color, and cut-outs, but the story may give you an existential crisis. Actually, children with their vast imaginations probably can understand it better than adults.

[Antonietta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing book that combines color-learning with sensory activities.

[Hallie Jackson · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 stars. Kids will love it.

[Christie Kaaland · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully layered for texture, this sensory titles is perfect of the most abstract of thinkers in your classroom. The main character "little giant" is blind (though Herbauts never explicitly states this) and one day he decides he wants to know the color of the wind. He travels from one encounter to another asking, "What color is the wind?". The Little Giant asks the dog and wolf, the mountain, the window, town, and the rain; each tell of a different perspective of the color of the wind. The window describes the color of the wind as "time" as time passes by through the window's view; in town, the color is objects such as curtains. And the rain knows nothing, though the reader 'feels' the rain on the pages. Finally, the little giant comes upon a bigger giant who explains, "The color of the wind is everything at once, this whole book" as the giant rustles the pages of the book to let the reader feel the wind created by the wind itself.

[Clare Sheedy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just wonderful. What a gorgeous and playful book.

[Hanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really beautiful book. The pages had holes poked in them, were textured, and had incredibly intricate designs. I’ve never read a book that was quite so innovative in its art design.

[Monica · Rating 5 out of 5]

beautiful images and so many sides and views gives hope

[Vicki · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is very textural and would be best shared one on one so a younger listener could feel the pictures.

[Teresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anne Herbauts was inspired by the title of this book when one day a blind child asked a grownup, "What color is the wind?" Her story begins when a little giant asks the same question. Each page responds differently and is full of art that offers a wonderful variety of texture and perspectives. The text is gentle, thoughtful, and poetic, appealing to both young and mature audiences. It's beautiful.

[Kate Puleo Unger · Rating 3 out of 5]

ages 3-6

This book is full of abstract illustrations and textures pages. It would be perfect for a sensory child. A little giant seeks to find out the color of the wind. Everyone/everything he asks has a different answer. The conclusion is that the color of wind is everything in the book.

http://www.momsradius.com/2016/12/cyb...

[Jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a tremendous sensory experience to read this book! My gifts of sight and touch played together to evoke how I might begin to answer the question of the wind's color.

[Debbie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A giant wants to learn the color of the wind so he travels around asking animals and plants what color is the wind. The book is a delight with wonderful illustrations that are not only colorful, but involve a tactile element also.

[Joan Arbogast · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love the tactile experience of this one since it offers glossy, raised portions of flat, matte spreads.
As for the text, one could say that the question posed is open to a number of interpretations.

[Jessie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really beautiful book, and it's also important to touch the pages and feel the different textures.

There's a lot to notice here and think about -- why each part of nature thinks the wind is the color they answer.

[Robin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very sensory (cutouts, textures, shapes) presentation --
an altogether amazing book!!
-Anne Herbauts is from Brussels-
copyright 2016 by Claudia Bedrick for the English language translation (from the French); copyright 2011 by Casterman - originally published in France in 2011