Reviews for Blue

by Laura Vaccaro Seeger

Horn Book
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Inventive author-illustrator Seeger sneaks a story about loss into her celebration of all shades blue--"baby blue," "berry blue"--through a portrait of the happy life of a boy and his dog. We slowly understand that the boy is growing, and so is the dog..."old blue." As in her previous book Green, small die-cuts lead from each richly textured double-page spread to the next. (c) Copyright 2019. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.


Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

This companion to Seeger's Caldecott Honor book Green (2012) explores a fresh color's visual and metaphorical permutations.Seeger unfolds the entwined lives of a white boy and a golden Lab, from baby- and puppy-hood through a series of poignant transitions. Cleverly placed die cuts and rhymed, two-word phrases (set in ever crisp Helvetica Neue bold) anchor each double-page spread. To her many-hued blues, some thick with impasto, Seeger adds yellow, sienna, crimson, and green in scenes that transit fluidly among interiors and natural tableaux exploring the sea, a stormy night, a sun-dappled park, and more. At "baby blue," puppy and toddler sleep among blue toys, sharing a small square of blue clotha future neckerchief they'll trade throughout. For "berry blue," boy pulls dog and a berry basket in a red wagon. The phrase "maybe blue" perches on a blob of yellow in the child's vivid self-portrait with pet. (The dog traverses the picture, tracking yellow paint across the deep-blue ground, its die-cut paw prints mixing to make green.) At "very blue" the pair cavorts among blue butterflies, which fill the foreground in huge, delightful proximity. Later scenes depict the Lab's inevitable aging, with the boy sitting ("so blue") on a dock at sunset, his body bent in grief. Last, another transition: meeting a brown-skinned girl and her young sheepdog, the blue scrap now tucked in the teen's back pocket.Sumptuous, stunning, and heart-stirring. (Picture book. 3-7) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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