My book stumper is a children’s picture book I’m pretty sure it’s about colours. I have no title or author but I was about 5 or 6 reading it, making that 1963-64.
What I remember most are the deep rich vibrant colours. It was nothing like the washed out, pastel-riddled books I mostly had.
One page was a drawing of a bunch of grapes and they were the deepest, purplest, most mouth-watering colour imaginable.
I think I remember a cloudy storm page…all blues,blacks,grey’s. Images were large and loud. Maybe a new book in the vibrant 60’s!
There was an orangey page. A bold page of sun, I think.
I remember no people and if there was text it was very limited… maybe “a purple bunch of grapes” or just “grapes are purple”. No story.
Only about 8- 10pgs perhaps.
Hardback. paper pages.
We grew up in Canada so either an American or British book, not likely Canadian.
It was stunning. I would love to find it
I remember a Wonder Book like that, Come And See the Rainbow, first published 1960. Strangely enough, also in Canada.
Thank you so much for the ‘Rainbow’ suggestion. I looked it up but the book I’m hoping to find didn’t look like a children’s book it looked like an art book. I’m pretty sure each page featured a different colour and there were no people or faces — lots of still life.
Thank you!
Could this be one of Brian Wildsmith’s early books – perhaps his ‘ABC’ or ‘123’, both published in the early/mid 60s? It’s a long time since I’ve read them, but they do combine vibrant colourful pictures with very few words.
I got excited after reading your reply and looking up Brian Wildsmith. Unfortunately the book I’m looking for wasn’t a counting or alphabet book. It, I’m fairly certain, was a picture book about colours. It wasn’t very long, perhaps 8 or 10 pgs.
Thank you very much for the reply.
This is a long shot because it doesn’t fit all your specifications, but memory is funny so I’ll suggest it: “My Color Game,” a 1966 Whitman Big Tell-a-Tale Book by Evelyn M. Begley, illustrated by Winnie Fitch. It does have a story of sorts and people- a little boy free-associates about colors from the patches in a quilt his grandmother made- but the colors are very bright/deep/rich (the boy’s hair is fiery red) and the text is in that “this is purple, that is purple” style. If you Google you can find the cover and some pages.
You might look at some early Richard Scarry…it sounds a little like the “colors” section from Best Storybook Ever. I don’t know if it was ever a separate book though.
Could it be “I See Something Red?” I had it when I was a kid (and still do somewhere) and although I’m younger than you, I think it was published in the ’60s. I can’t remember if the blue page is a storm page, but it has everything else you described for sure: hardback book about colors, 8-10 pages, little text, vibrant colors, grapes and a sun.
One year later after giving up hope, I went back to Book Stumper & see your note here, Jill.
I instantly got excited when you mentioned the title & the grapes.
I have left messages with 4 used book sellers requesting a photo of the grapes page. I have my fingers crossed. Thank you so much for this tip!