Module 11: Living Color

Book Cover Image

Summary

Steve Jenkins takes the colors red, blue, yellow, green, orange, purple, and pink to organize animals by their color. Each animal comes includes a picture and what makes that animal special. 

APA Reference

Jenkins, S. (2007). Living color. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Company. 

My Impressions

I particularly enjoy the colorful illustrations and the fact that they are not photographs but actual paintings of animals. I believe children will enjoy the facts about the animals. I personally can not pull my 3rd graders away from non-fiction/informational books.  Something about the thrilling and out of the ordinary facts about animals and insects. 

Professional Review

It’s difficult to imagine a science topic better suited to picture-book form than this one, which offers a pageant of the most stunning, vividly hued creatures on the planet. For children somewhat older than Jenkins’ usual readership, this book opens by explaining that bright coloration goes beyond mere decoration: “If an animal is very colorful, it is likely that its brilliant skin, scales or feathers somehow help it stay alive.” Arranged by color, subsequent spreads feature a rainbow of animals rendered in Jenkins’ celebrated cut-paper style. Each picture is accompanied by a paragraph of nicely distilled information, most effective when it specifically links color to survival tactics such as camouflage, mating, or the repulsion of predators. An accessible afterword explaining more about coloration is followed by a pictorial appendix that includes approximate sizes for the book’s 66 creatures (the preceding depictions are not to scale, allowing Jenkins to lavish full attention on even the fingernail-size pygmy seahorse). From the pink fairy armadillo to the purple deep-sea dragonfish, readers will be fascinated by the panoply of critters that often seem the stuff of fairy lore, and educators will applaud the clever concept of presenting survival adaptations as a biological fashion show.
— Jennifer Mattson

Mattson, J. (2007). Booklist. 

Library Uses

Students can research the fact about the animals and com are it to other books that have the same animal or insect.