Magic Colors
Teach Your Children the World of Color!

By Debra K. Pollack
Illustrated by The Wiz

      Magic Colors is a very sweet little 16-page booklet designed to introduce toddlers to the basic colors: yellow, green, blue, orange, white, brown, and red. The illustrations are simple and cute - we especially liked the turtle. I read the book aloud to my five-year-old, who is definitely over the target age group and she liked it. She enjoyed the interactive element - touching the pictures that show the color you've just learned on the page before. She also likes anything that rhymes and the text does have very good, consistent meter. I would have liked it more if the rhymes had actually related to the color itself - for example, "magic color, make a wish for I'm the color of the fish" doesn't even hint at anything about the color. The fish is white - but since that's a rather unusual color for a fish, it would have been nice if the child learned something from listening as well as from looking. The rhymes seem to be mostly to keep the child entertained with the sound while he gets the real meaning from the pictures themselves. I can see value in that - but would have liked the book to go further. As I said, it charmed my daughter so for rhyme-loving toddlers, the book should be a fun addition. I must add as a warning that this is a very fragile book for toddlers - thin pages, thin cover, staples for a binding - so if your toddler still likes to eat his books, you might want to hold off on this one until he's a bit older.