Living Color

by Steve Jenkins

Overview

Red, blue, yellow, green, orange, purple, pink—animals can be startlingly colorful. Why are they found in so many shades, tints, and hues? From the scarlet ibis to the blue-tongued skink, award-winning author/illustrator Steve Jenkins depicts a whole world of colorful animals in his signature style. Living Color explores a range of animals from old favorites like the pink flamingo to rare and fascinating creatures such as the long-wattled umbrella bird and the ringed caecilian. How do the brilliant feathers, scales,shells, and skin of these animals help them survive? Find out in this strikingly beautiful book how animals use color to warn predators, signal friends, attract a mate, or hide from their enemies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780547349633
Publisher:	Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publication date:	09/10/2007
Sold by:	Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Format:	eBook
Pages:	32
Lexile:	NC950L (what's this?)
File size:	14 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	8 - 10 Years

About the Author

Steve Jenkins has written and illustrated many nonfiction picture books for young readers, including the Caldecott Honor–winning What Do You Do with a Tail Like This? His books have been called stunning, eye-popping, inventive, gorgeous, masterful, extraordinary, playful, irresistible, compelling, engaging, accessible, glorious, and informative. He lives in Colorado with his wife and frequent collaborator, Robin Page, and their children.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"The phraseology is immediate and inviting...filled with lively, digestible tidbits...This will easily lure browsers in a range of ages..." Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

"Jenkins once again astounds...the combination of easy-to-understand language and gorgeous illustrations makes this a prime choice for any young animal enthusiast's collection."—Publishers Weekly, starred review

"Another amazing work by a master illustrator." School Library Journal, starred review

"It's difficult to imagine a science topic better suited to picture-book form than this one, which offers a pageant of the most stunning, vividly hued creatures on the planet. ...From the pink fairy armadillo to the purple deep-sea dragonfish, readers will be fascinated by the panoply of critters that often seem the stuff of fairy lore, and educators will applaud the clever concept of presenting survival adaptations as a biological fashion show."—Booklist, ALA

"Color becomes the organizing factor in this new exploration of the quirks of the animal world. Jenkins’s design, always striking, reaches the heights of inspiration with this offering... guaranteed to be a browser’s delight."—Kirkus Reviews

"The book’s real highlight, though, is Jenkins’s cut-paper collage: his animals are dazzling—vibrantly colored and detailed. For each of the featured animals, further information—size, habitat, and diet, among other facts—is provided in the end matter. There Jenkins also answers questions like “How is animal color created?” That’s a godsend, because it’s definitely the sort of thing curious young readers will ask"—Horn Book

"The illustrations are done in Jenkins' signature medium...richly colored and brilliantly designed. This is a grow-with-me book."—Tampa Tribune

"Jenkins blends his trademark collage illustrations with snappy facts." —The Washington Post

"A terrific book for elementary schoolers."—Providence Journal

Editorial Reviews

Jenkins focuses on the colors red, blue, yellow, green, orange, purple, and pink as they appear in a wide variety of creatures around the world. For each color, he uses one or two double pages to illustrate and explain how the color sends a message about the many creatures that have it, along with additional information about each animal. Added comments of interest pepper the pages. What an incredible array of characters both familiar and unusual are included! In his usual deft manner, Jenkins manipulates his colored papers to offer accurate representations of some common creatures but far more exotic ones. We are torn between observing and admiring his mastery of the medium and appreciating his intent to inform us about his subjects. In addition to more notes on animal color, Jenkins ends with six pages packed with small images of all the characters, sixteen per page, plus facts about each.

Children's Literature - Ken Marantz

Color becomes the organizing factor in this new exploration of the quirks of the animal world. Red, for instance, warns predators away from stonefish and chiggers, provides protective coloration for the deep-sea jellyfish and blood-red fire shrimp and establishes bragging rights for male hooded seals and white uakaris. Color by color, gorgeous collages against clean white backgrounds are accompanied by playful typography and cool factoids (did you know that sloths enjoy a greenish hue lent by algae growing in their fur?). Jenkins's design, always striking, reaches the heights of inspiration with this offering, as when the color-changing cuttlefish appears half on the yellow page and continues through the turn onto the green page, a sly trick repeated with the chameleon. It's a smorgasbord approach that does not seek to make connections beyond color, but rather to astonish the reader with the range of colors and adaptations found in the natural world. Extra facts about coloration and thumbnails providing basic information about each animal depicted make up the backmatter of this volume, which is guaranteed to be a browser's delight. (Nonfiction. 4-8)

Kirkus Reviews

"The phraseology is immediate and inviting...filled with lively, digestible tidbits...This will easily lure browsers in a range of ages..." The Bulletin 9/2007

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

"Jenkins once again astounds...the combination of easy-to-understand language and gorgeous illustrations makes this a prime choice for any young animal enthusiast's collection."—PW Starred, 7/16/07 Publishers Weekly, Starred

"Another amazing work by a master illustrator." SLJ Starred 10/2007 School Library Journal, Starred

It's difficult to imagine a science topic better suited to picture-book form than this one, which offers a pageant of the most stunning, vividly hued creatures on the planet. ...From the pink fairy armadillo to the purple deep-sea dragonfish, readers will be fascinated by the panoply of critters that often seem the stuff of fairy lore, and educators will applaud the clever concept of presenting survivaladaptations as a biological fashion show.
Booklist, ALA

Color becomes the organizing factor in this new exploration of the quirks of the animal world. Jenkins’s design, always striking, reaches the heights of inspiration with this offering... guaranteed to be a browser’s delight Kirkus Reviews

The book’s real highlight, though, is Jenkins’s cut-paper collage: his animals are dazzling—vibrantly colored and detailed. For each of the featured animals, further information—size, habitat, and diet, among other facts—is provided in the end matter. There Jenkins also answers questions like “How is animal color created?” That’s a godsend, because it’s definitely the sort of thing curious young readers will ask" Horn Book

"The illustrations are done in Jenkins' signature medium...richly colored and brilliantly designed. This is a grow-with-me book." Tampa Tribune 11/18/07 Tampa Tribune

"Jenkins blends his trademark collage illustrations with snappy facts." The Washington Post 12/08/07 The Washington Post

"A terrific book for elementary schoolers." Providence Journal 12/11/07 Providence Journal

From the Publisher