Black Is a Rainbow Color

Starred review from December 1, 2019
A young black child ponders the colors in the rainbow and a crayon box and realizes that while black is not a color in the rainbow, black culture is a rainbow of its own. In bright paints and collage, Holmes shows the rainbow of black skin tones on each page while Joy's text describes what "Black is" physically and culturally. It ranges from the concrete, such as "the braids in my best friend's hair," to the conceptual: "Black is soft-singing, 'Hush now, don't explain' "--a reference to the song "Don't Explain" made popular by Billie Holiday and Nina Simone, the former depicted in full song with her signature camellia and the latter at her piano. Joy alludes throughout the brief text to poetry, music, figures, and events in black history, and several pages of backmatter supply the necessary context for caregivers who need a little extra help explaining them to listeners. Additionally, there is a playlist of songs to accompany reading as well as three poems: "Harlem," by Langston Hughes, and "We Wear the Mask" and "Sympathy," by Paul Laurence Dunbar. The author also includes a historical timeline describing some of the names that have been used to describe and label black people in the United States since 1619. Both a beautiful celebration of black culture and an excellent first black history book for young children. (Picture book. 4-8)

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Starred review from March 15, 2020
Grades K-3 *Starred Review* A beautifully told and illustrated celebration of African American people and ethnology, Black Is a Rainbow Color thoughtfully explores what the Black experience means to a child. Starting with the young narrator's personal experience with the color black ( Black is the braid in my best friend's hair / Black are the bottoms of summertime feet ), then moving toward historical and cultural events ( Black was the man / who gave the world his dream ), each line emphasizes the positive connotations of the word. Accentuating these efforts are Holmes' (Voice of Freedom, 2015) gorgeous illustrations, which are reminiscent of stained-glass church windows and manifest the many ways people of African descent can be beautiful. After the rhyming text, Joy supplies historical and cultural notes (including descriptions of how each page spread relates to a specific segment of Black history and a time line of the words used to describe Black people since the first enslaved people arrived in colonial America), a song list featuring deliberately chosen celebratory music from throughout the decades, and three poems. All provide context for the people depicted within and for the mores of each era. A must-have for children's collections.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)