and to name but just a few: Red Yellow Green Blue, written and illustrated by Laurie Rosenwald - review

and to name but just a few: Red Yellow Green Blue, written and illustrated by Laurie Rosenwald
Packed with Easter Eggs and in-jokes, this shouty color book is a delight. Laurie Rosenwald is a professional illustrator for fine New York publications, but she obviously enjoys a spell of messy, unprofessional behavior from time to time. The illustrations - expressive collages and swipes of crayon, scraps of photo, puddles of paint - are bold and chunky enough for babies... while the text, laid out, colored and sized in such a way that you know exactly how to read it and where to place the emphasis, is clever enough for first or even second graders.

mary had a little lamb
its fleece was white as snow
she painted it with poster paint
and now it isn't

When I read it to my kids, my four-year-old said that the pink page was his favorite. "You know why? I love this page because it's pink, and your hair is pink, and I love you!" Q.E.D.

Give it to your niece who's going to art-school; give it to those hipster parent friends of yours with the expensive stroller.