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Many of the books are folktales and are connections
since they are about colors. They introduce opportunities to extend
the scientific study of light and color to discussions about color
in social and cultural contexts. Even though some of these books
were written for younger children, your 5–8 grade students
may enjoy them too.
Be on the lookout for books about sunglasses, color-blindness,
color vision in humans and animals, how certain colors absorb
and others reflect light, rainbows, prisms, and different kinds
of secret codes comparable to the secret messages students create
in this unit. Send us your nominations for inclusion in the next
edition of this handbook!
The Adventures of Connie and Diego
Colors
Hailstones and Halibut Bones: Adventures in
Color
How the Birds Changed Their Feathers
The Legend of the Indian Paintbrush
The River That Gave Gifts, an Afro-American
Story
The Adventures of Connie and Diego
by Maria Garcia; illustrated by Malaquias Montoya
Children’s Book Press, San Francisco. 1987
Grades: K–5
The twins Connie and Diego are born different than all the
other children because they have “colors all over their little
bodies.” The other children laugh and laugh so one day the
twins decide to run away in search of “a place where no one
will make fun of us.” They encounter a bear, a whale, a bird
(who loves their colors), and a tiger. They learn that although
their surface appearance is different from that of other children,
they are human beings, no matter what color they may be. This
strong anti-racist message, while designed for younger students,
becomes a lesson for people of all ages (and colors). This book
could also be part of a class discussion about the colors we see,
pigments, and the role that skin color plays in society. The English
and Spanish verse appear together on each page.
Return to list of titles.
Colors
by Gallimard Jeunesse and Pascale de Bourgoing;
illustrated by P.M. Valet and Sylvaine Perols
Cartwheel/Scholastic, New York. 1991
Grades: Preschool–2
You mix the colors of the rainbow by using the transparent
color overlays and vibrant illustrations of animals, flowers,
food, etc. Although designed for early grades, the hands-on pages
of this book create several “discovery” experiments
that could be of interest to older students as well.
Return to list of titles.
Hailstones and Halibut Bones: Adventures
in Color
by Mary O’Neill; illustrated by John Wallner
Doubleday, New York. 1961, 1989 (new edition)
Grades: All
Twelve two-page poems of impressions of various colors. The
perceptions go far beyond visual descriptions, painting a full
spectrum of images. In the GEMS Color Analyzers activities,
students learn how white light is made up of light of different
colors. They use red and green filters and diffraction grating
to learn more about light and color. Many teachers have highly
recommended these poems as an excellent literary accompaniment
to the GEMS unit.
Return to list of titles.
How the Birds Changed Their Feathers
by Joanna Troughton
Blackie & Son, London. 1976
Peter Bedrick Books, New York. 1991
Grades: K–4
This South American tale tells how the birds used to be all
white and then came to have different colors. When the cormorant
kills the huge Rainbow Snake, the people skin it and jokingly
challenge the bird to carry the skin if he wants to keep it. All
the birds join together to carry it through the air and each bird
keeps the part of the skin it has carried then its feathers become
that color. The cormorant carries the head and becomes mostly
black.
Return to list of titles.
The Legend of the Indian Paintbrush
by Tomie dePaola
G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York. 1988
Grades: K–4
After a Dream Vision, the Plains Indian boy Little Gopher
is inspired to paint pictures as pure as the colors in the evening
sky. He gathers flowers and berries to make paints but can’t
capture the colors of the sunset. After another vision, he goes
to a hilltop where he finds brushes filled with paint, which he
uses and leaves on the hill. The next day, and now every spring,
the hills and meadows are ablaze with the bright color of the
Indian Paintbrush flower.
Return to list of titles.
The River That Gave Gifts, an Afro-American
Story
by Margo Humphrey
Children’s Book Press, San Francisco. 1987
Grades: K–5
Four children in an African village make gifts for wise old
Neema while she still has partial vision. Yanava, who is not good
at making things, does not know what to give, and seeks inspiration
from the river. As she washes her hands in the river, rays of
light fly off her fingers, changing into colors and forming a
rainbow. After all the other gifts are presented, she rubs her
hands in the jar of river water giving a rainbow and the gift
of sight to Neema. In addition to the themes of respect for elders
and the validity of different kinds of achievement, the color
theme evolves into evoking symbolism of each color in the rainbow.
The book could be used as the start of a comparison of the scientific
view of colors with the ways color is viewed and used in different
cultures and art. This book could also help prompt an open-ended
discussion about the relationship of light to color.
Return to list of titles.
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