WOW Dozen: Visual Storytelling with a “Pop” of Yellow
The color yellow has always offered opportunities to celebrate, and fittingly so given its association with positive emotions and energy such as happiness, hope, warmth, enlightenment, confidence and enthusiasm. As it is a personal favorite color, I am especially drawn to illustrations that use yellow as a pop of color against a black/white/gray background, also known as monochromatic with a color accent. Thus, when A Dog Wearing Shoes or The Yellow Butterfly became part of my personal and classroom connection, I began gathering titles that had similar approaches to telling their story through art and focusing on the impact of this pop of color in each title, as well as those with perhaps a second accent color when appropriate to the story. My exploration gathered numerous titles and extended as well to those books where yellow (or gold) is a key color although not necessarily on a neutral background, such as A Place Where Sunflowers Grow (Amy Lee-Tai and Felicia Hoshino, il., 2006), Typewriter (Yevgenia Nayberg, 2020), or The Golden Glow (Benjamin Flouw, 2018). It also led to exploring the origins of color in books such as Before Colors, Where Pigments and Dyes Come From (Annette Bay Pimentel and Madison Safer, il., 2023).
The dozen books described here are chosen to reflect a variety of topics and purposes for choosing yellow as a focal point – from authentically using a representative color, to choosing yellow as a meaningful visual to complement the story, hold interest, or provide energy to certain elements. Many of these books are wordless, inviting the reader to interpret the story through the art. In each case, these titles offer reason for celebration, reflecting happiness or offering hope in difficult situations, as well as opportunities for personal reflection on self and the world.
The traditional yellow school bus is the main character in this powerful and emotional story of change over time and being open to finding joy in each situation that results.
The dog with yellow shoes reflects both hope and happiness as the reader follows the shoes throughout the story of many themes, such as lost and found, making the right decisions, caring for animals.
Using the imagery of yellow butterflies in the midst of darkness, this wordless picturebook evokes the emotional response of Ukrainians to the Russian invasion while retaining hope as more butterflies appear.
Yellow identifies riders on a subway enacting and receiving kindness as one woman uses art to relieve stress among passengers and conductor, and her example is followed by a young girl, ultimately impacting many.
The golden sand left from a beach vacation appears in many forms, ice cream, umbrellas, a castle, as two children, identified with a touch of blue clothing, imagine what might grow if they plant the sand.
From a golden key taking readers into the house that holds a light, bed, and book, the color yellow leads the reader into the book that holds a bird and description of the universal lights of night; readers also follow the yellow objects as they leave the house and view the lights of night.
A creative crow is decorating his corner space and after adding various items, surrounds himself with the color yellow that readers can possibly interpret as being the light that leads to the creation of a window and happiness opening to the outside world.
While blue contributes to the background of this story sharing how a blind child enthusiastically enjoys the world around her, yellow, the color of her clothing, outlines how she envisions various objects, particularly an elephant, and continuously links to her creativity sensory experiences.
Now the first of a series of environmental stories for young children, the yellow digger represents both happiness and hope as he discovers a flower while clearing land in the city and takes her seeds to a nearby field to flourish and hopefully restore the land that has been stripped of vegetation.
The yellow star on a magician’s wand leads to the story of a friendship between the magician and his rabbit and how the magic of friendship, noted by scattered stars, led the lost rabbit back to the magician.
Dressed in gold, the color links the little girl returning from school to objects that connect to home and family while also offering opportunity to think beyond assumptions to possibilities about family.
Color is a key factor in sharing the daily life of this lion cub for very young readers as they consider activities, sequencing and happy endings.
WOW Dozen features a list of 12 global books for children and adolescents around a theme, topic, issue or personal favorites. Each Dozen consists of ten newly-published titles with two older "must have" books. Please share or recommend additional books that fit the theme in the comments section or on social media using #WOWDozen. Use the printer icon in the upper left corner of this post to print or save this list as a PDF.
