They Say Blue

by Jillian Tamaki

Hardcover, 2018

Status

Available

Collections

Favorites, Picture books

Publication

Groundwood Books 2018

Description

A young girl describes where she finds colors in both the world around her and beyond what she can see.

User reviews

LibraryThing member JLSlipak

Caldecott and Printz Honor-winning illustrator Jillian Tamaki brings us a poetic exploration of colour and nature from a young child’s point of view. They Say Blue follows a young girl as she contemplates colours in the known and the unknown, in the immediate world and the world beyond what she

can see. The sea looks blue, yet water cupped in her hands is as clear as glass. Is a blue whale blue? She doesn’t know — she hasn’t seen one.

Stunningly beautiful illustrations flow from one spread to the next, as time passes and the imagination takes hold. The world is full of colour, and mystery too, in this first picture book from a highly acclaimed artist.

Canadian Author

MY THOUGHTS:

I received this book in exchange for an honest review.
Wow! Let’s start with the book jacket. Chad W. Beckerman and Jillian Tamaki did a fantastic job with the book jacket. It’s quaint and whimsical and right away, I saw my daughter shooing birds at the beach.
The watercolour format is a perfect choice. If you remove the book jacket, you are bombarded with vibrant colors of the rainbow.

Inside you’re immediately introduced to the main character who is just adorable and she is surrounded by an array of gorgeous watercolors in shades of blue… with the main character plunked right in the middle. The book continues on exposing more and more colors to the reader using bright, carefree strokes and fun illustrations; and then, eventually returns to the color of blue as the story wraps up. I fell in love with the talent of this author for both her story and the illustrations that accompany her work. The story is perfect for a picture book where young children are learning to read and enjoy reading along with a parent. The wording is age appropriate, simplistic and takes children on a journey of life and color and how beautiful our planet truly is. This book is filled with love from cover to cover.

It’s a large hardcover book perfect for the lap. I can’t say enough about this book.

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LibraryThing member AbigailAdams26

Author/illustrator Jillian Tamaki, best known for her graphic novels, makes her picture-book debut with They Say Blue, a lovely, poetic examination of colors and seasons. A young girl observes and interacts with the natural world around her, appreciating the blue of sky and sea, the gold of grass,

and the gray of rainstorms. Eventually, she sprouts into a tree - at least, in her dreams - and experiences the seasons of the year...

I found They Say Blue immensely appealing, from a visual perspective, and I appreciated the text. I debated with a colleague about this one, after he suggested it would work better as a wordless picture-book. Although I do think that the text here could be pared down a bit, Tamaki's visual narrative isn't quite at the point that it could carry the story along by itself. The reference to the red of blood, for instance, which flows through the narrator's veins, would be completely lost if this were a wordless book. Leaving that issue aside, I do think this is a beautiful book, and I found the artwork colorful and full of a sense of motion that perfectly matched the narrative. Recommended to those who appreciate beautifully-illustrated picture-books, or are looking for children's titles exploring concepts such as the seasons and/or colors.

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LibraryThing member sweetiegherkin

A young child looks at the colors around her and then begins to imagine all the things she could be.

This book is full of beautiful illustrations and has a lovely care-free attitude displayed within its pages. Personally, I enjoyed all the various looks at nature throughout the seasons and loved

that an Asian child was the protagonist of a book NOT about race.

However, I do think the bit of a turn this title takes into the more surreal things might not work for every child reader; in fact, it may even confuse some. Being a fan of surrealism, I enjoyed it, but it may not work for some more literal-minded kids. For that reason, I think this would work better for elementary school-age children than toddlers or even preschoolers.

I also have a quibble about the lines "I can't see my blood, but I know it's red. It moves around my body even when I am perfectly still." Scientific knowledge tells us that blood in our bodies is actually blue, so that inaccuracy (simplification?) bothered me.

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LibraryThing member Lisa2013

I liked this book. It’s a good about going through the seasons and more complex and interesting than most colors books. Its’ fun and sweet too. I enjoyed the illustrations as they went from blue (and clear) to orange to red to golden/yellow to gray to purple to green to brown to white to black.

I was hoping it would come full circle and go back to blue but except for one illustration at the end (sort of) it didn’t. I wasn’t wowed by the “story” but I think this could be an interesting book for kids who enjoy nature, and the seasons, and like finding and/or viewing colors on pages. Most of the illustrations do not have just the highlighted color but many colors and I appreciated that. 3-1/2 stars

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LibraryThing member jennybeast

Beautiful, imaginative -- colors, seasons, feelings, art. Diverse faces, wonderful movement. Contemplative.

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