Learning through stories – our top three books to help your child think about colour
Have you noticed that your child is becoming more thoughtful about the colours they use when they draw, paint or make artwork? We love to see the emerging ideas and preferences that can be seen, or talked about, as they pick the colours they most want to use.
One way to start a conversation about colour, and what it might mean to you, is through stories and there is no shortage of books which explore colour in interesting ways. Here are three of our favourites.
The Colour of Happy by Laura Baker and Angie Rozelaar
Colour can be a lovely way to start a conversation about emotions, and is often linked to our experiences and memories of a time and place too. This beautiful picture book embraces this idea, telling a rhyming story about loss, friendship and love using a different colour on each page to represent a feeling or moment.
Reading the story, you will join the characters travelling through their world which changes colour, from yellow for a happy moment, red for feeling angry, grey for despair, gold for hope and even pink for love.
Mixed: An Inspiring Story About Colour by Arree Chung
This picture book tells a story about working together, and embracing the ways our differences make us stronger, through a tale of a world of primary colours who always stay separate until one day... when they discover that there is a whole world of colours to be created by coming together!
It can spark a conversation about primary and secondary colours, and inspire lots of experimentation next time the art supplies come out, and give you an opportunity to talk to your child about how they might view their similarities and differences within their relationships with a focus on the ways those differences can be celebrated and used to make life fuller – and more colourful.
How Colour Works by Catherine Barr and Yuliya Gwilym
A little bit different to our other suggestions, How Colour Works is a non-fiction picture book which explains some of the science behind colours (and why we see them). Each colour is beautifully illustrated and there are interesting facts for everyone to learn about colour as you read.
Some of the explanations might not feel very useful or relevant for your child just yet, but as each page focuses on a different colour it is ideal for dipping into as their interest peaks – perhaps enjoying the images and simpler science initially and coming back over the years to add to their understanding as they grow.
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