Librio Library 21 – The Colour Monster – Anna Llenas
3 minute readWhy we chose Colour Monster
For our 21st edition of Librio Library, we feel it’s time to introduce our first popup book. And what a popup book it is: Colour Monster by Anna Llena.
In this beautiful, sensitive book, she explores the concept of emotions and how they affect us. She does this by using different colours to represent each emotion and then exploring how each emotion makes us (or, in this case, the Colour Monster) feel.
It all begins with the Colour Monster waking up one day feeling decidedly moody and a bit muddled. Luckily though, he meets a little girl who helps him work out how to separate his emotions from one another by placing each individual colour in its appropriate jar and he ends up feeling much better. Marie Kondo would be proud.
In what continues to be a very .. emotional ... time for young and old alike, we love this book for teaching you how to work out what you're really feeling inside and share it with those around you.
Favourite image
As you go through the story, the images leap out at you - quite literally! You walk through a variety of colours. Yellow being happiness, red - anger, black - fear, green - calm and pink being… well, a surprise emotion at the end. The illustrations really draw the reader in and almost make you feel the emotions yourself as they are so well executed.
Although at Librio we generally like to focus on the positive, on this occasion the blue image depicting sadness had the biggest effect on us and was our favourite as it was so emotive as well as being constructed from pure popup magic.
Kids will like
Each page holds a new pop-up surprise and the little ones can barely wait to turn each one and see what the next page holds. The fact that it is such a tactile experience makes it a great hit with the kids too. Just be… careful… when… turning… the… pages… little ones.
Parents will like
The pop up element doesn’t just appeal to the little ones. It’s also a great hit with the adults who’ve read it and the use of colour also holds great appeal showing a new take on a subject not often addressed so directly in children’s books.
The Colour monster looks at a tricky subject in a comprehensive and enjoyable way and enables little ones to learn about emotions in a way that will definitely stick with them once the book is back on the shelf.
If you like this book
There are countless books out there that look at the subject of emotions. One example of this is The Soul Bird by Michal Snunit or Today I Feel by Madalena Moniz (Librio Library #13). But for those of you wondering if the Colour Monster has any other adventures out there, we can also recommend The Colour Monster goes to School.
If you’re more the creative type then there is the option of making your very own Colour Monsters. Examples of how can be found here and below is a handy video.