BookBairn is fascinated by all things colourful at the moment! She loves the rainbow song (and spotting rainbows in the sky); she likes to...

The Colour Monster

Wednesday, January 18, 2017 BookBairn 16 Comments

BookBairn is fascinated by all things colourful at the moment! She loves the rainbow song (and spotting rainbows in the sky); she likes to tell you the colour of cars, buses, tractors, etc; she adores a coloured bath bomb and watching the water colour change; and she loves to draw with all her coloured pencils, crayons and pens! And she's getting pretty good at it.


One of the colourful things that she is enjoying the most is 'The Colour Monster' by Anna Llenas. A truly brilliant pop-up book, this is the story of a little monster who is all mixed up. His fur is multi-coloured and his feelings are all in a muddle. A little girl offers to help him sort out his colours/feelings (which are perfectly intertwined).  She explains each colour he feels by linking it to his emotions and explaining in a little detail (just the perfect amount for an impatient page-turner) about what the emotion feels like. Yellow is happiness; blue is sadness; red is anger; black is fear and green is calm. They put each emotion into a little bottle so he can see the colours and their feeling labels. BookBairn loves this page - she loves opening the little bottles and saying the colour or the feeling word. She spends ages just choosing which one to open next. And on the final page, Colour Monster has pink and is surrounded by love hearts - I wonder what he is feeling now.


Not only is this book beautifully illustrated, it is beautifully constructed. Each page features monster, whose expression varied depending on the emotion, as he explores his feelings. I have to mention, in particular, the blue/sadness page - the clouds have strands of blue string dangling from them to represent the rain and it is just magical. BookBairn enjoys running her fingers along them. As this is a pop-up book it is more fragile and less toddler-friendly than the board books we usually review but BookBairn is quite delicate with her books and she looks after them well (for her age). We always read this one with her though just in case she gets a bit rough, though she has shown no signs of doing this. I think she understands that it is a special book.*

It has also reinforced her colour vocabulary and she is now aware of the colour 'black' which I'm not sure she really knew all that well before. She is also beginning to make connections between feelings words. For example, she is keen to do more and more for herself now but sometimes struggles to open, close, balance things herself and has started to make a little squeal scream of frustration, we have used the anger page to talk about feeling angry when she can't do something. She's only little but she is beginning to try to identify feelings in herself and others.

This is a wonderful and beautiful book and I cannot recommend it highly enough! We've read it every day recently and it is firmly on the favourites shelf.

Love Mummy and BookBairn x

P.S. I have a craft activity planned to do with this book which I will update you on when I get supplies, but I wanted to share this review now whilst it is a current top read for BookBairn!

*But if you have a toddler it's definitely worth investing in the hardback edition!

*DISCLAIMER* We requested this copy of 'The Colour Monster' from the publisher along with Anna Llenas's upcoming release and were kindly sent it in exchange for a review. All words and opinions are as always our own!





16 comments:

  1. This sounds a fabulous book and reminds me a little of a pop-up book that MummyBookBairn loved. Unfortunately, I don't have it to hand but I think it is called "This Little Monster" or something like that. Each page starts with "This little monster...." and has a different little monster popping out the book with different actions. It's a favourite with all the toddler's that visit our house. I'm sure MummyBookBairn or GMaBookBairn will have the proper title and author.

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    1. I have a lovely photo of you reading it with BookBairn in the garden from the summer time. I'm impressed it has survived so many toddler hands! x

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  2. It was the fabulous Jan Pienkowski's Little Monsters - still available for Little Monsters https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0763638536/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_tA-Fyb417QCC2 I loved it, so do BookBairn's cousins and it's just hanging together after 30 years of good use

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    1. I can't believe it is still in one piece! I would pick up a copy for BookBairn but it's nice for her to have a special book to share at your house! x

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  3. We love The Colour Monster too! It's a great first introduction to emotions as well as colours :)

    #readwithme

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    1. It's such a brilliant book and I thin BookBairn is just at a good age for learning about her emotions! x

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  4. This looks fantastic, so bright and colourful!!! Thanks for sharing with #ReadWithMe

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  5. This sounds like a fabulous book and it's great that it makes the link between colour and emotion. I think this would be really good for my little nephew, although I suspect he would treat it with less care than Book Bairn!
    It's funny how kids don't learn the colour black for a long time - I found my kids didn't learn grey or brown either. I guess it's because they're not interesting!

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    1. I love the link between colour and emotion - it makes it easier for children to understand. Your nephew would love it! But perhaps supervision would be required by the sounds of things x

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  6. This looks a lovely book. We haven't got many pop-up books for the grandchildren so this might be a great idea for the little one's birthday.
    Thanks for sharing.
    #readwithme

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    1. Hope they like it! It's a work of art and fun too!

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  7. I've seen this book a few times and it looks fab - it's one on my list for H when he is a little older
    #readwithme

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    1. You absolutely must get it! He will love it!

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  8. I love the look of this book, it works on so many levels and the pop up elements look amazing! #readwithme

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    1. The pop-up artistry in this one is particularly special! x

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