Red Is a Dragon
by Roseanne Thong
illustrated by Grace Lin
Date: 2001
Publisher: Chronicle Books (CA)
Reading level: C
Book type: picture book
Pages: 40
Format: e-book
Source: library
Younger children will be engaged by Red Is a Dragon, as a young girl finds a rainbow of colors in her everyday life.
(synopsis from Goodreads)
I'm kind of underwhelmed. This book of colours shows them off well enough, but I wasn't crazy about the illustrations (some are fine, but in others the people are drawn in a style that looks too simple and almost... I don't know... incomplete?) and the rhyming text is really clunky in places. The whole book has a Chinese flavour, highlighting objects in various colours (there's a bit of a glossary at the back, explaining what some things are: dumplings, silk fans, bottle gourds, etc.). However, since I just read the delightful Goldy Luck and the Three Pandas--which also explained a bit about Chinese cultural symbols--Red Is a Dragon had a lot of live up to. Unfortunately, it didn't quite get there.
Quotable moment:
Premise: 3/5
Meter: 2/5
Writing: 3/5
Illustrations: 3/5
Originality: 2/5
Enjoyment: 2/5
Overall: 2.43 out of 5
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