Pomelo Explores Color (Pomelo the Garden Elephant)

by Ramona Badescu (Author) Benjamin Chaud (Illustrator)

Pomelo Explores Color (Pomelo the Garden Elephant)

Imaginative, playful, and funny, Pomelo Explores Color is all about discovery and the experience of seeing color anew.

In this humorous and emotionally astute exploration of color, Pomelo looks about and discovers twelve colors in all their nuance. He encounters the infinite white of falling snow, the hypnotizing red of love, and the shadowy blue of the unknown. The colors describe our concrete world, but also reflect emotional states, as well as the curious, oddball sensibility of our dear Pomelo.

Ramona Badescu was born in 1980 in southern Romania. She arrived in France at the age of eleven and started to write for children ten years later. She lives in the wonderfully diverse French city of Marseille.

Benjamin Chaud lives and works in Paris, France. He has illustrated an impressive number of picture books and has written at least one as well.

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Kirkus

An unusual look at colors provides something for preschoolers and something more for older kids. [...] Badescu places all the whites in a row, then the yellows, then the oranges, creating a calm neatness that holds things steady while the color examples bounce between conventional and complex. [...] Chaud's art is sweet, offbeat and eye-catching....

Publishers Weekly

Starred Review

In this small-format companion to Pomelo Begins to Grow, the eponymous pink elephant with a longer-than-average trunk investigates the subtleties of different shades of the same color. The "melancholy orange of autumn" causes Pomelo to gaze wistfully at a falling leaf, while "the true orange of an orange" is an ode to 1960s/1970s decor, with Pomelo enjoying orange juice in an Eero Aarnio ball chair atop a shag carpet. Some visual elements repeat: ripening strawberries are a "promising red" early on, but one that's gone bad represents "the deflating gray of disappointment." As if expertly parsing the unexpected emotions that colors evoke wasn't enough, each one of Chaud's understated and surreal vignettes could spawn a story of its own. Ages 3-up. (Oct.)

Copyright 2012 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission.

School Library Journal

Gr 1-3--Pomelo is diminutive in stature, long in the nose, and the color of bubble gum. Here, he explores a surprising variety of colors. The text contains moments of brilliance in which color and emotion unite, as in the "explosive red of anger" or the "deflating gray of disappointment." Other comparisons, like the "mustard-yellow pang that goes up the nose" or the "speeding orange of shredded carrots," are somewhat obtuse. And the "always different yellow of wee-wee," while true, may strike readers as an odd choice. Chaud's use of perspective, expression, and color will entice readers to explore each page, but this book may be too peculiar to have mass appeal. Purchase where picture books about art and color are popular or for fans of Pomelo Begins to Grow (Enchanted Lion, 2011).--Jenna Boles, Washington-Centerville Public Library, OH

Copyright 2012 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Review quotes




Ramona Badescu
Ramona Badescu: Ramona Badescu was born in 1980 in southern Romania.She arrived in France at the age of 11 and started to write for children ten years later. She lives in the wonderfully diverse French city of Marseille.

Benjamin Chaud: Benjamin Chaud lives and works in Paris. He has illustrated an impressive number of picture books and has written at least one as well.

Classification
Fiction
ISBN-13
9781592701261
Lexile Measure
-
Guided Reading Level
-
Publisher
Enchanted Lion Books
Publication date
October 20, 2012
Series
Pomelo the Garden Elephant
BISAC categories
JUV003000 - Juvenile Fiction | Art & Architecture
JUV009020 - Juvenile Fiction | Concepts | Colors
JUV002080 - Juvenile Fiction | Animals | Elephants
Library of Congress categories
Colors
Color
Elephants
JUVENILE FICTION / Art & Architecture
JUVENILE FICTION / Imagination & Play
JUVENILE FICTION / Concepts / Colors

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