My Many Colored Days

I made the mistake of picking this book up for my toddler after just flipping through a couple pages and not reading the whole thing - I would have thought Dr. Seuss would be safe. Unfortunately the choices of connotations for some of the colors have unfortunately racist implications - "brown" is slow and gloomy, "black" is angry and frightening. I don't think for a minute this was intentional racism, but it's also not a book I want in my house.

This book explores how each day comes with different feelings and moods, which are expressed here as various colors (i.e., pink is happy, black is mad, etc.). This is a Dr. Seuss book that was published posthumously based on a manuscript he wrote with a note that he wanted to see someone else's interpretation for the illustrations. The illustrations are done by Steve Johnson and Lou Fancher, who created gorgeous paintings full of vibrant brushstrokes and, of course, striking colors. The result is a beautiful book about exploring one's many emotions and giving credence to them all. I highly recommend this book, but it's worth noting that if you're looking for the typical Seussical fare, this is not it.

The main idea of this book is that we all don’t always feel the same way every day. As our book shows, sometimes we are energetic orange days. Other days could be a mopey brown day or even a mixed up day with multiple attitudes jumbled together. As always, one of the things I like about Doctor Seuss is the way that he uses language. As in any Doctor Seuss book, a typical theme is in the uses of alternating rhymes. For example, one sentence reads “ Green Days, Deep deep in the sea. Cool and quiet fish that’s me.” The sentence has a natural cadence built in due to these rhymes, and is much easier to read as well as more enjoyable. Additionally, I like the way that the book uses illustrations. They are drawn with very soft texture, show more as if each was painted in watercolor. By not using standard conventions of lines to model 3D shape, the pictures seem far more interesting and students may react better to this art style than others. Overall I felt like this was a decent book that has a decent amount of charm. show less

My Many Colored Days by Dr. Seuss was originally written the year I was born (so back in the days of bell bottoms, Adam-12, and Watergate) but wasn't published until five year's after Dr. Seuss's death. It's a book about color, emotions, and creativity.

Apparently, though, he didn't know how to illustrate it, which seems silly given the man's long career as an artist and illustrator. But he felt his art didn't match his words and he needed someone else to tackle the manuscript when the time was right.

Two illustrators did just that: Steve Johnson and Lou Fancher, a husband and wife team. Their saturated colors and bold brush work are about as un-Seussian as possible. But given that he wanted the emphasis to be on his words, separate from show more his easily recognizable style, that's a good thing. The focus here is definitely on the colors and the emotions they can evoke. show less

I love the concept, and the writing, and the visual execution of the text (for the most part -- occasionally, whoever designed the book gets carried away with making the words all punchy! and! exaggerated!). And I guess the most important parts are the vivid colors in relation to the text. But MAN, I wish the art was more attractive; there were moments where I found it quite ugly.

"Some days are yellow. Some are blue. On different days I'm different too." Dr Seuss takes the reader on a journey through the many different moods that can be experienced in life with paintings that reveal such striking images as a bright red horse kicking its heels, a cool and quiet green fish, a sad and lonely purple dinosaur, and an angrily howling black wolf. Using a spectrum of vibrant colors and a menagerie of animals, this unique book helps children explore human moods and emotions.

I liked this book. The first reason I liked this book is for its choices in font. As the plot continues, the fonts change from a typical Arial font, to whacky, stretched, thin, bold, and cursive fonts, each matching up with a particular feeling or onomatopoeia. For words such as “kick,” “buzzy,” and “sad,” the letters that make up the words are places above and below where the normal sentence lines are placed to emphasize their importance and meaning in the story. I also like this book because of the connection between the text and the illustrations. Each one or two page spread talks about a different color and emotion associated with that color. For example, on the page with the text “on other days I’m other things. On show more Bright Blue Days I flap my wings” there is a large bright blue bird mid-flight, placing an action and a color with the exciting choice of color. This allows the reader to place an emotion and action with a familiar color, enhancing the potential for deeper understanding. The big idea of this book is that even though there will be days where you feel different, whether that be hyper and jumping around, or sad and want to be alone, you will always go back to being yourself in the end. This is an important lesson for children who are still trying to understand their own and others’ feelings. show less