Having Fun With Concept Picture Books
Color Dance (1989) by Ann Jonas is the textual reincarnation of Loie Fuller. Now how many times can you say that about a children's picture book?!
Fuller, a modern dancer famous for her Serpentine Dance (1891) explored the relationship between colour and movement. And it is precisely this relationship which is so playfully depicted in Jonas’ cheerful book Color Dance.
Below is a Youtube video of Fuller's legendary dance.
Like Fuller, the characters in Jonas’ picture book experiment with fabric and movement. Her simple story starts with three young dancers, each representing a different primary colour. As they move their scarves around, mixing the different colours, new combinations of hues emerge. Towards the end of the story, a fourth character, a male dancer adds to the blending of colours bringing with him scarves in different shades: white, black and grey.
The book reminds me of another much loved concept picture book, Mysterious Thelonious by Christopher Raschka. Like Color Dance, Raschka’s book also plays with colour in a very unique manner, one that is tied to music in the same way that Color Dance is tied to dance.
So what exactly is a concept picture book? It's a book that focuses on simple concepts: colors, shapes, sizes, numbers, counting etc. The two titles above are rather sophisticated examples of concept books, but that's why I love them. If Loie Fuller were alive today, you can bet she'd get a kick out of these titles hereself.
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