What Color Is Love?

They say that children's books have the power to make a greater impact on your character than the books you read later in life.  When I think way, way back to the very, very first books that were read to me as a child, aside from "Pat the Bunny," and Richard Scarry, I remember this one:

When I read this book now, I hear my mother's voice.  Many years later, when I read it to my own children, I read it the way it was read to me, using the same emphasis and inflections. 

So my "Rainbow" garden this year is dedicated to Joan Walsh Anglund, and her book "What Color is Love?"

I can't imagine a better way to gently introduce children to the "we're all the same inside" concept, and get them thinking about emotions, tolerance and even world peace.

Colors are important
  because they make our world beautiful,
  but they are not as important
   as how we feel...
       or what we think.....
           or what we do.

Colors are "outside" things and feelings are "inside" things.

Below, she describes why her drawings omit the children's mouths and noses:

"I still 'see' different expressions on the children's faces. I think perhaps I am trying to get down to the essence of a child - not drawing just a particular, realistic child, but instead I think I'm trying to capture the 'feeling' of all children - of Childhood itself, perhaps. This may be too why I find myself dressing the children in a timeless manner, not really in any definite 'period' in time - but always with a vague sense of nostalgia."

Karen, of Greenwalks,  is our prize winner!  Karen not only won the drawing, but knew the title of the book as well as the illustrator, so her award is well-deserved. (Karen please email me your address at nyackbackyard@gmail.com so I can send you your prize.)

"What need we touch a child—

with our books and rules?

Let him walk among the hills and flowers,

Let him gaze upon the waters,

Let him look up to the stars—

And he will have wisdom."

What's the very first book you remember being read to you?