The Color Monster

July 1, 2018

PreS-Gr 3-In this Spanish import, children can learn to compartmentalize feelings through colors. Multihued Color Monster "woke up feeling confused, and he doesn't know why." His friend, a young girl, helps detangle his jumbled-up feelings by having him separate each one into its own color jar. She explains, how happiness "shines yellow like the sun," where sadness "is lonely and blue like a rainy day." She extrapolates on each explored feeling with examples such as "When you are calm, you breathe deeply. You feel at peace." With a background in art therapy, Llenas finds an approachable way for kids to identify feelings, and allows for the understanding that one can have many emotions at once. Color Monster never goes into why he is feeling a certain emotion, allowing space for readers to attach personal meaning to their own emotions and feelings. It also shows kids it is okay to cry when you feel sad, and how sometimes naming a feeling and separating it from another feeling is enough. Llenas's use of watercolor, pastels, and collage on a variety of styles of papers and cardboard has a three-dimensional aspect, enveloping readers into each world of feeling. The book's open ending shows Color Monster experiencing a new feeling, allowing for extrapolation and further conversations. VERDICT A great guide and conversation starter for one-on-one, storytime, or early elementary and SEL classrooms.-Danielle Jones, Multnomah County Library, OR

Copyright 2018 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 15, 2018
A kid helps a monster sort out his emotions.A monster arrives, multicolored, with frowning mouth and troubled eyes. "Are you all mixed up again, Color Monster?" asks an inexplicably annoyed-looking child. Then, either the child or a narrative voice proclaims, "Your emotions don't work well when they're all jumbled up." The child, now smiling, offers to help separate the monster's emotions "and put each one in its own jar." Each emotion is assigned one color, and the monster turns that color only (rather than multicolored) while that feeling is explained. Placing emotions literally into jars implies an odd repressiveness, while declarations such as "When you're sad, you...want to be alone" are unnecessarily universalizing. The textual descriptions sometimes contradict the visual messages, showing aesthetically cheerful or peaceful artwork for spreads about sadness or confusion. However, taken on their own, the multimedia illustrations are downright splendid. Using wax colors, watercolor pencils, acrylics, pencil, and collage, Llenas lays out entrancing textures and hues in enthralling compositions with plenty of white space. Lines are scribble-style, checkered, and swirled; background paper is graphed, perforated, and newsprinted. Cardboard or cardstock cutouts, punctured and layered, look as though they could be felt by readers' fingertips. Shapes are irregular and organic like home-cut crafts. Tugged across a blank white spread by the eager child, the multicolored monster trails collaged ribbons of color.Ignore the lackluster, prescriptive text--get this Spanish import for its fabulous artwork. (Picture book. 3-6)

COPYRIGHT(2018) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

September 28, 2015
A pigtailed, paper cutout girl assists a scribbly, googly-eyed monster in sorting his mixed-up emotions, represented by different colors, into jars. Sadness, no surprise, is blue; in the accompanying tableau, the monster sits with the girl on her bed, while twined string creates “rain” falling from pop-up clouds. When the monster is angry, he “blazes bright red,” and when he is calm, he turns green as he reclines in a pop-up hammock. Despite the odd and potentially unhealthy message about bottling up one’s emotions, Lllenas’s emphasis is on identifying emotions over constraining them, and a closing scene emphasizes that love can’t be contained. Ages 3–7.

January 1, 2019
In this inviting exploration of colors and emotions, youngsters are introduced to Color Monster, who "woke up feeling confused, and he doesn't know why." A little girl helps him sort out his emotions by first identifying and untangling them and then associating them with colors. Llenas's mixed-media illustrations mimic a child's drawings with their combination of energetic and calming colors, patterns, and textures; they perfectly complement the book's theme.

(Copyright 2019 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

November 1, 2018
In this inviting exploration of colors and emotions, young readers and listeners are introduced to a Color Monster who woke up feeling confused, and he doesn't know why. A little girl helps him sort out his emotions by first identifying and untangling them ( Your emotions don't work well when they're all jumbled up ) and then associating them with colors that run parallel to elements of nature and real-life experiences. Her comparisons help young children themselves acknowledge different emotions and how they may react when they feel happy, sad, angry, etc. For example, This is happiness. It shines yellow like the sun and twinkles like the stars. When you're happy, you laugh and jump and dance and play!?This is anger. It burns red like a fire and is hard to stamp out. Llenas's mixed-media illustrations mimic a child's drawings with their combination of energetic and calming colors, patterns, and textures; they perfectly complement the theme of the book. Useful as a conversation starter ( How are you feeling today? ) and as bibliotherapy, the story should resonate with children whose emotions are not always easy to control. aishah abdul-musawwir

(Copyright 2018 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)