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Dear Book Lovers, Welcome! I am delighted that you have found The Through the Looking Glass blog. For over twenty years I reviewed children's literature titles for my online journal, which came out six times a year. Every book review written for that publication can be found on the Through the Looking Glass website (the link is below). I am now moving in a different direction, though the columns that I write are still book-centric. Instead of writing reviews, I'm offering you columns on topics that have been inspired by wonderful books that I have read. I tell you about the books in question, and describe how they have have impacted me. This may sound peculiar to some of you, but the books that I tend to choose are ones that resonate with me on some level. Therefore, when I read the last page and close the covers, I am not quite the same person that I was when first I started reading the book. The shift in my perspective might be miniscule, but it is still there. The books I am looking are both about adult and children's titles. Some of the children's titles will appeal to adults, while others will not. Some of the adult titles will appeal to younger readers, particularly those who are eager to expand their horizons.

Monday, February 20, 2017

Picture Book Monday with a review of Every Color

Sometimes the best way to appreciate what you have is to get away from your home for a while. I know this certainly is true for me. I often come home from a vacation and see my home and my life through fresh eyes. I see that I am rich in many ways.Today's picture book explores the idea that sometimes you have to adjust the way in which you see things before you can truly appreciate the world around you.

Every ColorEvery Color
Erin Eitter Kono
Picture Book
For ages 4 to 6
Penguin, 2016, 978-0-8037-4132-4
Bear lives “at the top of the world” in a place that is covered with white ice and snow. Though there is beauty in his white homeland, Bear longs to see color, and gets very depressed because there is no color to be seen where he lives.
   Bear’s friends do their best to cheer him up, and when that doesn’t work a passing seagull decides to help. The seagull visits a little girl it knows and she sends Bear a colorful picture of a rainbow. The gift delights Bear, but it does not “take away his discontent.”
   When the little girl gets Bear’s thank you note, she decides that she needs to go to see him. Across the ocean she goes in a little boat and when she gets to the frozen, white north she tells the bear that she knows what he needs. She is going to take him on a trip.
   Together the little girl and the bear sail around the world and see many wondrous, and colorful, things, and the bear paints color-rich pictures of the things he sees. Each of his paintings are then placed in an envelope and they are sent off, via the seagull, to an unknown destination.
   All too often there are wonderful things in front of our eyes that we simply do not see because we don’t know how to. It would appear that there are ways of seeing that are not always accessible to us at first.
   This wonderful picture book explores a bear’s journey as he learns how to see, how to be open, and how to set aside discontent so that his eyes and heart are able to ‘see’ the world in a new way.
 

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