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The Black Book of Colors by Menena Cottin, illustrated by Rosana Faria

Raised black line drawings on black pages encourage people to use their other senses to experience art, helping them understand what it is like to be blind.

Kirkus Review starred (May 15, 2008)

"Thomas likes all the colors because he can hear them and smell them and touch them and taste them"--but he can't see them, and this innovative picture book gives sighted children a sense of what that must be like. Color by color, readers learn yellow ("tastes like mustard"), red ("hurts when he finds it on his scraped knee"), brown ("crunches under his feet like fall leaves") and so on, but all they'll see is black. Each all-black double-page spread is devoted to one color, the left-hand page containing the simple, sensuous text rendered both in a clear, white typeface and in raised Braille letters, and the right illustrating one of the objects described with embossed lines that force readers to encounter them tactilely rather than visually. The shock readers feel will give way to wonder as they lose themselves in sightlessness and imagine the richness of Thomas's world: "Black is the king of all colors. It is as soft as silk when his mother hugs him and her hair falls in his face." Fascinating, challenging and lovely. (Picture book. 5 & up)

Check it out!

Check out the following books available at ISE Library.

Preschool
Maybe a Bear Ate It! by Robie Harris
At bedtime, a young "boy" who cannot find his favorite book imagines the various creatures that might have taken it from him.

Booklist starred (December 15, 2007 (Vol. 104, No. 8))

Preschool-Grade 2. The story is familiar: a child’s precious possession is lost, causing all kinds of angst. In this version, the art is the story, with just a few well-chosen words to emphasize or clarify what’s happening in the pictures. A whiskered critter (possibly a kitty) clad in striped pajamas (even his ears and tail are covered) is ready for bed. He climbs among his blankets with his book and his stuffed toys, which include a bat, a shark, and a bear. He opens his book and reads, a look of total rapture on his face. But in the midst of a yawn, the book disappears. Chewing on the corner of his blankie, he mourns its loss. Has it been stolen by a bat? Swallowed by a shark? Eaten by a bear? What really happened, as children will discover, is not nearly as exotic. Plain white backgrounds allow Emberley, who obviously knows how toddlers move and react, to concentrate closely on his character, whose every beautifully calibrated movement and feeling blasts out across the page. The picture of the kitty gleefully skipping across an empty white expanse with found book in hand is priceless. Even adults will be hard pressed not to smile. Pair with Mo Willems’ Knuffle Bunny books.

Lower School
My Rotten Redheaded Older Brother by Patricia Polacco
After losing running, climbing, throwing, and burping competitions to her obnoxious older brother, a young girl makes a wish on a falling star.

Booklist (Vol. 91, No. 2 (September 15, 1994))

Ages 5-8. Polacco's story of her childhood rivalry with her brother Richard harks back to growing up with grandparents in Union City, Michigan, and catches competition at gut level. Her grandmother, Bubbie, whom readers will recognize from other Polacco books, doesn't seem to know how rotten Richard is. Polacco conveys the passionate intensity of conflict--trying to pick more berries, eat more rhubarb, and stay on the merry-go-round longer--as well as the abiding love beneath it. The figures of the children are intense and full of motion, and the facial expressions are beautifully accomplished. Surrounding it all are Babushka-clad Bubbie's comforting love and warm hugs.

Middle School
The Invention of Hugo Cabaret by Brian Selznick
When twelve-year-old Hugo, an orphan living and repairing clocks within the walls of a Paris train station in 1931, meets a mysterious toyseller and his goddaughter, his undercover life and his biggest secret are jeopardized.

Horn Book starred (September, 2007)

Over a sequence of twenty-one double-page wordless, illustrated spreads, a story begins. The tale that follows is a lively one, involving the dogged Hugo, his ally Isabelle, an automaton that can draw pictures, and a stage magician turned filmmaker. The interplay between the illustrations and text is complete genius, and themes of secrets, dreams, and invention play lightly but resonantly throughout.

Upper School
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak.
Trying to make sense of the horrors of World War II, Death relates the story of Liesel--a youn g German girl whose book-stealing and story-telling talents help sustain her family and the Jewish man they are hiding, as well as their neighbors.

Kirkus Review starred (January 15, 2006)

When Death tells a story, you pay attention. Liesel Meminger is a young girl growing up outside of Munich in Nazi Germany, and Death tells her story as "an attempt-a flying jump of an attempt-to prove to me that you, and your human existence, are worth it." When her foster father helps her learn to read and she discovers the power of words, Liesel begins stealing books from Nazi book burnings and the mayor's wife's library. As she becomes a better reader, she becomes a writer, writing a book about her life in such a miserable time. Liesel's experiences move Death to say, "I am haunted by humans." How could the human race be "so ugly and so glorious" at the same time? This big, expansive novel is a leisurely working out of fate, of seemingly chance encounters and events that ultimately touch, like dominoes as they collide. The writing is elegant, philosophical and moving. Even at its length, it's a work to read slowly and savor. Beautiful and important.