266G: Color-based ABC books

I am trying to find a children’s book probably printed in the 70s or 80s.

It was to teach children about colors. Each page featured a different color (I remember there were pages for Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple, Pink, Brown, Black, and White). On each page the name of the color would be printed in that color, and there were various objects of that color illustrated (for example the Red page would have had an apple, a red barn, a cardinal bird, etc). Each page might have had ten or so illustrations on it.  The non-primary-colored pages of this book (orange, grey, pink) had a small illustration to show how they made those colors by combining others. The illustrations were circles…red circle + white circle = PINK, red circle + yellow circle = orange, etc.

I am having a great deal of trouble remembering the exact illustrations, but I’m trying. I think that (among other things) the Yellow page had buttercups and a canary, Blue page had bluebells, Pink had a rose, White page had baby’s breath and maybe a jug of milk, Black page had some sort of berry(?)

The art style definitely had a vintage look to it, like so:

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5 thoughts on “266G: Color-based ABC books

  1. Megan

    Update to this info: the book may not have been an “ABC book”, only a color book.

    I have remembered that the pink page may have had a pink ribbon, and that the blue page had a cornflower on it.

    Reply
  2. Caroline

    Could this be Richard Scarry “Best stories ever” published in 1971? It had beautiful illustrations of colours and objects.

    Reply
    1. Megan O

      Thank you so much for trying to help, I really appreciate it. The artwork was nothing like Richard Scarry’s and mostly featured inanimate objects (unlike Mr. Scarry’s books which feature a lot of animals dressed as people). There seem to be many of his books called “Best [x] Ever”, none of which I recognize by the covers :/

      As I was trying to say in the description, the book was entirely about colors and objects that were certain colors. Each page featured a different color and a variety of objects in that color, and that was pretty much it. Colors that were not primary colors (pink, grey, purple, etc) had an additional illustration featuring circles of each color added together to create the secondary color ( i.e. red O + white O = pink O).

      I don’t recall any stories to go along with the illustrations. The only words in the book that I can remember are the name of the color on each page (“RED” on the red page) and a word describing each object (on the yellow page the illustration of a canary bird said “canary” next to it or the buttercup flower said “buttercup” next to it, etc etc.)

      Thank you anyway! The search goes on!

      Reply
  3. Rose

    How was grey spelled?
    Did the grey page have a beach and a sandpiper?
    Were they watercolor illustrations?

    I also had a color book with lovely pictures, flowers and animals, but I don’t recall the title.

    Reply
  4. Kacey

    I am looking for this book also! I remember these books came in a series- one was on occupations- all illustrated in exactly the same way poster is talking about. I vividly remember the “brown” section had a lionfish in it. And some sea life life starfish and natural sea sponges.

    Reply

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