Pomelo et les couleurs
Illustration Benjamin Chaud
Pomelo regarde autour de lui et redécouvre 12 couleurs dans toutes leurs nuances. On y trouve :
Le blanc infini de la neige qui tombe, le blanc d’un lait chaud mousseux …
Le jaune acidulé du citron, le jaune aveuglant du midi…
Le rouge tomate de la honte, le rouge hypnotisant de la passion…
Le rose cucul la praline du bonheur, le rose des fesses de Pomelo !
Le bleu des rêves, le bleu obscur de l’inconnu…
Le vert bouleversant du printemps, le vert parfait des petits pois !
Issues de la nature, reflets des émotions, créatrices de sensations, les couleurs sont ici présentées à travers le regard toujours curieux et parfois décalé de notre Pomelo.
Une explosion d’évocations poétiques et humoristiques.
2011 Ed. Albin Michel Jeunesse
Disponible
LA PRESSE EN PARLE...
“Pomelo Explores Color” is a follow-up of sorts to Ramona Badescu’s 2011 book, “Pomelo Begins to Grow,” (a New York Times Book Review Notable Book), and is ostensibly a book about colors for young children. Of course there are already plenty of those, but this one is so much more. When Pomelo, a small pink elephant, explores a color he does so from trunk to toes, relishing the multi-sensory experience of a color, whether “the silent white of the blank page,” “the infinite white of winter,” “the foamy white of hot milk” or “the comforting white of his favorite dandelion.”
This book doesn’t just point children to which color on the page corresponds with which word. It also shows them how different colors can smell and taste (“the acidic yellow of lemon”) and surprise, and how they make the observer feel and discover. It makes the reader, of whatever age, want to see color the way Pomelo does, for the first time or from a fresh angle. There is humor (“the always different yellow of wee-wee”) and giggles (“the mustard-yellow pang that goes up the nose”). The “perfect pink of Pomelo” is illustrated by a closeup of Pomelo’s rear end, with its scraggly pip of a tail.
And there are unexpected emotional moments — “the melancholy orange of autumn” offering a contrast to most picture books’ cheery depictions of fall. Readers are similarly offered a look into “the shadowy blue of the Unknown,” with Pomelo uneasily plunging his trunk into an indigo void. There is even something slightly menacing about “the hypnotizing red of love” with a whirly-eyed Pomelo besotted by a heavy-lidded frog. Inexplicably, a bug-eyed snail gazes forth from a page labeled “the breathtaking brown of Gigi.” If you say so.
But even when depicting shelled slugs, Benjamin Chaud’s resplendent illustrations make you want to hug the pages of this aptly small-scale and chunky-sized book. This is a book to dive into, to hold, to gaze at. It’s a book that makes you want to ponder “the puzzling purple of eggplant” and “the energizing purple of turnips.” It’s a book that’s worth a second — and a third, and a fourth — look.
Pamela Paul - The New York Times- 12/12 2012