A review by calistareads
Blue: A History of the Color as Deep as the Sea and as Wide as the Sky by Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond, Daniel Minter
4.0
Whoa! So much information is packed into this lovely book in such an elegant way. It's more like a story that will engage kids.
I found this book on some 2023 Mock Caldecott lists and the artwork for this is stunning. The story is amazing and based on facts. What an amazing book.
The author picked out many phrases like :"out of the blue", "true blue", "royal blue", Nothing but blue skies", "Once in a blue moon", "having the blues". So many different emotions for a color. Learning the history of the color helps understand where the phrases come from.
I knew blue was a rare color in ancient times, but I didn't realize that the color was precious all the way until the 1900s when the color could be made with chemicals in a laboratory. Before then, it was not an easy process to get the color blue. Once they discovered the indigo plant it became more ordianry, but still, many people suffered to bring that color. 6000 BC they discovered Lapis Lazuli. They crushed this stone to make the color. Thousands of years later they found a small snail that would produce it. Blue used to be very rare.
I take this color for granted. It's unbelievable to me that blue used to be so rare. It's everywhere now - and thank goodness.
The story even includes how our eyes see wave lengths and that's why water looks blue as does the sky. This was a very beautiful and cool book. It might get some interest from kids. My guess is that the niece would have enjoyed this book, while my nephew would have been bored. Who knows anymore. It's not funny.
I found this book on some 2023 Mock Caldecott lists and the artwork for this is stunning. The story is amazing and based on facts. What an amazing book.
The author picked out many phrases like :"out of the blue", "true blue", "royal blue", Nothing but blue skies", "Once in a blue moon", "having the blues". So many different emotions for a color. Learning the history of the color helps understand where the phrases come from.
I knew blue was a rare color in ancient times, but I didn't realize that the color was precious all the way until the 1900s when the color could be made with chemicals in a laboratory. Before then, it was not an easy process to get the color blue. Once they discovered the indigo plant it became more ordianry, but still, many people suffered to bring that color. 6000 BC they discovered Lapis Lazuli. They crushed this stone to make the color. Thousands of years later they found a small snail that would produce it. Blue used to be very rare.
I take this color for granted. It's unbelievable to me that blue used to be so rare. It's everywhere now - and thank goodness.
The story even includes how our eyes see wave lengths and that's why water looks blue as does the sky. This was a very beautiful and cool book. It might get some interest from kids. My guess is that the niece would have enjoyed this book, while my nephew would have been bored. Who knows anymore. It's not funny.