Alys

Coincidentally this was the book I was using in my Mock Caldecott this week, so I've read it 14 times today! It was a book I wasn't originally excited to read, thinking, like Susan, that it'd be too close to Green. But I shouldn't have doubted! I found it very different and "individually distinct" both from its companion color book and other books published this year. Did anyone else miss the paw print on the front cover? It took one of the second grade students I read the book with to point it out to me. I was very impressed with the die cuts. On the one hand, it does feel a little gimmicky (unlike last year's Grand Canyon they don't serve a true function), but on the other hand several classrooms had a lot to say about how they felt the "holes" helped to make a connection from one vignette to another, making it clearer that they are all connected. And the execution is amazing. Not just planning for the colors to match, and to match across several page spreads, but also the shapes as well, plus adding in that the book rhymed and she had to choose which picture to do with which rhyme....the meticulous attention to detail is impressive. The students I read the book with especially enjoyed the through-line of the blue cloth that serves as baby blanket, handkerchief, dog collar, and memento.

Posted : Nov 08, 2018 06:34

Sam Juliano

"Blue is often a conversation in contrasts, and this is evident as soon as the book is opened to reveal the end papers and title page. The cover art is dark and dramatic with swirls of cerulean suggesting a dog’s paw print. The title page is an exhale — variations of sky blue textured behind a bold title. It is a place to pause before we keep looking for answers. The two experiences — the cover art and the title page — announce, ostensibly, the same information, but they feel so, so different, and this is the magic of Blue." Superlative observations here, as are many others in this wonderfully passionate and comprehensive assessment. I consider BLUE one of the great picture book achievements of the year. I'd like to note that Polish film director Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Three Colors: Blue is the second part of a critically-praised 1993 trilogy made in France which features acclaimed actress Juliette Bincoche as a woman self-driven into isolation after her husband and child are killed in a car accident. Like the other films in the melancholic triptych, Blue makes frequent visual allusions to its title: numerous scenes are shot with blue filters and/or blue lighting, and many objects are blue. When Julie thinks about the musical score that she has tried to destroy, blue light overwhelms the screen. Blue has been often been given poll-position designation as the world’s most popular color, a perceived fact largely because it is the color of the sky and the oceans. Prime associations with this formally sedate and less conspicuous pigment are intimacy, deep thinking and privacy, though it is vigorously opined that the color is symbolic of loyalty and nostalgia. Children’s book artists in recent years have lavished much of their pictorial attention to the color, and the result has yielded some sumptuous works. Isabelle Simler’s French import THE BLUE HOUR, features thirty-two blue colored ovals, each exhibiting a different shade of blue are labeled with the corresponding color. Even the instructor will be hard pressed to immediately recognize some of the eclectic variations, such as “porcelain,” “cerulean,” “Maya” and “periwinkle.” Peter Sis’ Robinson, a dreamy take on the Daniel Dafoe classic is an interpretation of the color as a portal to adventure, while Mordecai Gerstein’s dominant employment of an aquamarine variation still made for a veritable feast for the eyes of blue denizens. In 2018, Laura Vaccaro Seeger, who six ago gave the color green a vital new interpretation in her Caldecott Honor winning GREEN (which you also mention here is proper context), in suffusing the work with renewal and re-birth, has applied the same formula on her new book, crafting seventeen double page canvasses that is unison provide young readers with the picture book equivalent of the images filmed by cinematographer Slawomir Idziak in the Kieslowski film. Each ravishing tapestry resonates with thematic richness, bringing astonishing emotional heft to a simple story of a boy’s love for his dog during the formative years. Seeger insists that the color is a vital force of nature in the life cycle, that it defines human interaction with a canine companion, can be hot or cold, is present at birth and at the end of life and exerts soulful energy during those priceless moments meant to ensconced in the sphere of memories. A champion of acrylic paint on canvas board base, Seeger’s thick applications of converging shades of the color produced a stunning cover, again like on the cover of Green bleeding onto the white lettering denoting the title with almost storm-like intensity. It’s gorgeous. No picture book released in 2018 quite matches the emotional clout Seeger has quietly mounted in BLUE, though arguably two other masterpieces equal it in that regard (ADRIAN SIMCOX DOES NOT HAVE A HORSE and A HOUSE THAT ONCE WAS). By transferring the central focus to a relationship as opposed to the regeneration of plant life on the planet she tapped into with Green she has broached all to real matter of life and death, new relationships and appreciation for what we have and the indelible experiences that define who we are. With remarkable minimalism and the highest level of illustrative sublimity one can bring to a picture book Seeger has probed the deepest of emotions while treating readers to a trenchant study of a beloved color. As magnificent a book as Green is, Blue, which matches it artistically makes that ever so profound human connection. A masterpiece and surely one of the very best works of the year on multiple levels. Yes, the book DOES absolutely leave you weeping. I've watered numerous tissues beholding it repeatedly.

Posted : Nov 08, 2018 05:36

Susan Dailey

Rebekah, your review made me go back and study "Blue" again. In my personal notes about the book, I'd appreciated the texture and die-cuts, as well as the saturated colors. However, I'd dismissed it as a serious contender because I felt it was too much like "Green." Thanks for pointing out all the details I'd overlooked and the feelings the story evoked. (I don't remember "Green" having a story. Did it?) The committee will surely examine this title and have a lot to discuss.

Posted : Nov 08, 2018 03:25