MY COLORS, MY WORLD/MIS COLORES, MI MUNDO

Trying to find color and beauty in her childhood world of the California Mojave Desert, Maya (the author/illustrator as a young girl) uses her artistic propensities to seek out objects that stand out from their dusty surroundings. The playful Latina girl, with her cleft chin, beauty mark and wide, brown almond-shaped eyes, is at the heart of every double-page spread with her companion, her purple bird. She finds pink in the sunset and in her favorite outfits, the orange marigolds, the purple irises with their yellow pollen, the green cactus and her red swing. To round out her palette, she finds her Papi’s black hair, the blue of the night sky and the brown mud that she turns into beautifully decorated pies. The bilingual text provides a short poetic narrative, and the color words in Spanish and English are printed in a larger font that matches the color for each object. The intensely colored paintings, featuring some touches of magical realism (Maya floats into the sky with a brilliant pink sun and a moon with a folkloric rabbit in his cheek), don’t always lend themselves easily to the color-concept book format, but this book can jump-start the world of the imagination. (glossary of color words) (Picture book. 4-7)