The Pantone Color Institute announced their color of the year recently, and it is Pantone 19-4052 Classic Blue. They define the color on their website as:
Instilling calm, confidence, and connection, this enduring blue highlights our desire for a dependable and stable foundation on which to build as we cross the threshold into a new era.
That is a lot of power to ascribe to a paint chip. Some see a political message here, but I couldn’t help but think of all the children’s books that have the color blue in their title. And isn’t a “dependable and stable foundation” where “calm, confidence and connection” are nurtured the right ingredients for a successful childhood? And “crossing the threshold into a new era” can surely describe the coming of age and growing up that all children must do.
Powerful indeed.
There are so many children’s books that have the word blue in their title. A lot of adult ones, too. Maybe because the color is so classic, and can mean different things. You can have the blues, as well as sing them. Something can happen once in a blue moon, and then out of the blue. A blue-blood can enjoy a blue-plate special. And a faithful friend is true blue. No conflicting meanings there.
Is there any relationship more true blue than the one between a boy and his dog? In Laura Vaccaro Seeger’s Blue, the reader watches a small child and his puppy Blue grow up together. Using only two words per spread including the word blue we see them play together (ocean blue), sleep together (midnight blue), and read together (quiet blue). Near the end we see old blue with the now teenage boy and the inevitable sadness, or blues, that is about to come. But just as loss is part of living and growing up, so is change. At the very end, the older boy has “crossed the threshold” into a new relationship with a girl and her dog. New blue.
Such a simple but moving story. The illustrations using multiple shades of the color blue convey so much feeling and advance the story so seamlessly. Watch for the blue bandanna that is in nearly every picture. Highly recommended.
In Emily’s Blue Period by Cathleen Daly with illustrations by Lisa Brown, the stable foundation of a girl named Emily is being challenged by divorce. Emily is an aspiring artist who is learning about Picasso in school. She loves how he liked to mix things up in his art. Just like her. But Emily doesn’t like her family life to be all mixed up. Her father lives somewhere else, and she doesn’t know which place to call home.
Emily sees the world through an artists’ lens. While shopping for new furniture with her dad for his new place, she sees little cubes everywhere. And when asked why she won’t use the black charcoal in art class, she tells her mother that she is going through a blue period, just Like Picasso did when he was sad.
It is a little early in my career to be having a blue period, but it is happening all the same.
In the end, it is art that helps her to figure out the meaning of home and family, and to end her blue period. It is a picture book, but it is broken up into small chapters, or periods. The blues are muted throughout much of the beginning, but become more colorful at the end when she has overcome her sadness, or blues. Another good book about a young artist finding her way using the art she loves.
There are a lot of moons in children’s literature. Here is a blue one. In The Boy And The Blue Moon, by Sara O’Leary, a boy and his cat set out for a nighttime walk.
On the night of the blue moon, anything can happen, said the boy.
As they walk around their familiar surroundings, magical things do begin to happen. A lake appears, along with a boat that they jump into and steer towards the moon. The boy has thought about the moon often, and wished he could go there.
But tonight he wished extra hard. And the cat wished too.
And this being the magical night of the blue moon, their wish comes true. The boy and his cat enjoy a “perfect” night on the moon and think about staying there forever. But looking down at the blue earth, they decide to return to their safe and warm home. Ashley Crowley’s blue inks and pastels really capture the surreal nighttime blueness of this special night. There is a dream like quality to the pictures and story that ends with them the next morning tucked in bed in their space-decorated blue room. This boy clearly has a calm and stable foundation where dreams are nurtured and encouraged. A great bed time read aloud.
Blue Rider by Geraldo Valerio is a wordless picture book about the joys of color and art. A girl dressed in blue and carrying a blue backpack takes a walk through a drab urban landscape and finds a book on the sidewalk. She takes it home to her nondescript high-rise box of an apartment and is immediately transported into a colorful world. The reader is brought along for the ride, led by a blue horse into a vivid artistic landscape. The pages burst with colorful collages that practically pulse with movement. It is like riding into a painting. When she finishes the story, the joy she feels radiates into her room and out into the world. Another life momentarily changed for the better by art.
The author was inspired by the German Expressionist group known as Der Blaue Reiter, whose members included Wassily Kandinsky. More blue inspiration! A book that surely instills confidence in the use of bold color, and shows the wonderful calm that happens after experiencing an inspiring work of art.
There are many other “blue” books in children’s literature. Sharing books grouped together by an unexpected theme like color can be a fun way of talking about books with children.
So don’t sing the blues; read them!
