Sky Color

June 18, 2012
Reynolds provides another glimpse into artistic inspiration and self-expression in this small-format companion to The Dot and Ish. An “artist through and through,” Marisol has “her very own art gallery” on her fridge and happily shares her artwork with others. After offering to paint the sky in the mural her class is creating, she is dismayed to discover that the paint box contains no blue paint. Marisol ponders the problem as brilliant oranges, yellows, and pinks fill the sky at sunset, and she later dreams of drifting “though a sky swirling with colors.” Marisol’s classmates gaze in awe at the similarly radiant sky she paints on the mural in a final wordless spread. Reynolds’s characteristically wispy and loose mixed-media art makes judicious use of color in a way that accentuates Marisol’s creativity (Marisol’s artwork and the classroom paints are the only splashes of color in the book’s otherwise muted palette until the sky at sunset ignites Marisol’s imagination). Once again, Reynolds’s message is to think outside the box, and Marisol’s efforts should encourage readers to do just that. Ages 5–up. Agent: Holly McGhee, Pippin Properties.