Genre
Picture books for children
Tone
Upbeat
Writing Style
Attention-grabbing
Illustration
Colorful
Detailed
Subject
Barns
Color
Cooperation
Domestic animals
Farm animals
Farm life
Farmers
Farms
Paint mixing
Painting

Used in storytime 2/2/17 - Letter G ( )

When Farmer Gray goes away for the day, Blue Goose, Red Hen, Yellow Chick, and White Duck get together and paint their black and white farm. ( )

The colorful goose, hen, chick, and duck decide to paint the farm while the farmer’s away. Each animal uses its own color first (blue for goose, red for hen, yellow for chick, and white for duck) then the animals combine their colors to create others colors to use to pain the farm. The illustrations start out gray scale except for the four birds and gradually get more colorful and vibrant as the animals paint the farm. This cute story about colors works best for younger children, perhaps ages 1 to 4. The animals’ teamwork in painting the farm would make this book suitable to teach cooperation and teamwork. It would also be a useful book for teaching toddlers about colors and mixing colors such as how red and yellow mixed make orange and that green comes from combining yellow and blue. ( )

This book shows children and encourages them to help others like they helped the farmer paint his farm and make their world colorful. The illustrations get better as more color is added.