Reviewed by Wendy Lipke
This is a beautifully presented, hard covered, square, children’s picture book written by Catherine Barr and illustrated by Chaaya Prabhat.
Catherine writes non-fiction books that aim to inspire children to explore, understand and take action to protect the natural world. She has written over 35 books to spark conversation and curiosity about nature and the world around us.
Chaaya Prabhat is an illustrator and lettering artist from Chennai, India, currently working out of Goa. She has many picture books to her credit. Impressed by her creativity, point of view, and the poise of her work she was chosen by the Obama Foundation Summit in 2018 to provide work for them.
The Colours of Nature book explores our colourful world and provides information as to how and why colours look like they do to our eye and how colour helps creatures communicate, find mates, scare off predators, find tasty ripe food and avoid poisonous ones, hide and survive.
At least one double page spread for each of the following colours is presented. These are Wonderful White, Gorgeous Green, Brilliant Blue, Mellow Yellow, Fiery Orange, Perfect Pink, Ruby Red, Soft Grey, Earthy Brown and Deep Black. Other pages address all that glitters -those creatures that light the dark (bioluminescent creatures), colourful flowers, colours in space and ribbons of colours that circle our sky.
The reader is told that if you are high enough above the ground you might discover that a rainbow can sometimes be seen as a complete circle.
The reader also learns that many creatures which appear white to us are actually hiding darker colours underneath. A page of explanations of useful words associated with colour is the last page of information in the book.
The colours used on the pages are bold and fill realistic illustrations of fauna found in their natural habitat. Accompanying these are small blocks of information about the creatures occupying the page.
This is an engaging book with interesting information. Within a classroom for middle to upper primary students this book could generate many discussions and provide a platform from which further activities and research are generated. The creatures illustrated throughout the book come from across the globe.
This is a well-presented educational, picture book with vibrant colours to draw attention. It would benefit from being read, just a few pages at a time, to ensure the important information does not become lost.
The Colours of Nature
(2025)
by Catherine Barr
Illustrator Chaaya Prabhat
Bloomsbury Children’s Books
ISBN: 978-1-5266-7127-1
$32.99; 52pp