A RAINBOW All Around Me by Sandra L. Pinkney

Book Genre: Poetry, Multicultural

Publishing Info: Cartwheel Books, Scholastic Inc. (32 pages)

Awards or Honors:

Summary: This is a wonderful picture type book about colors. It teaches children how colors (yellow, blue, red, orange, purple, black, green, pink, brown, white, and tan) are all around them. Each color has vivid photographs that show the colors in everyday use. It also uses words to describe how the colors look or make you feel. For example, the color yellow shows various photographs of a young girl in a bright yellow rain coat. You can also find words to describe how the color may feel. Such as: "fun, bright, or sunshine in the rain".

Personal Rating & Reason: ****Great! I love the use of color and photographs in this book. The bright use of color and actual photos really catch the eyes. I also enjoy the authors word use. Her words to describe the colors are strikenly dead on.

Reading Level: Pre-K-1 (1.9 AR)

Interest Level: ages infant-6 years

Possible Uses: You could use this book to help the children learn their colors. It could be tied to writing as well as art.
Writing: You could do a color lesson for each color by having the students bring in photos of things that are the color of the day. Then you could have the students pick an item to write and illustrate. Another activity could be to have the children look around the room for items of a certain color. Or you could have the students make up their own describing words for the colors and make charts to put up around the room.
Art: Of course illustrating their writing would be an activity. You could also have the children make and taste items to help concrete the color in their head with tactile manipulatives. For example: green - make shamrocks and taste green apples or broccli , yellow - make sunflowers and taste lemons, blue - draw ocean scenes and touch ice, red - make hearts/valentines and taste red hots, purple - make grape collages and make jam in class, etc.

Potential Problems: None at this time.