Absolutely delightful fable, with lovely turns of phrase, and highly detailed pictures of a charming village. Of course, the very last few pictures are the best....

Trees were blue. Bees were blue.
Wheels and evening meals were blue."" ( )

This is a great children's story about a wizard who discovers how to create colors. It takes the reader to a magical world long ago where there were no colors, a time called 'The Great Greyness'. The wizard mixes up the color blue, which eventually makes everyone sad. He also makes the color red, which causes everyone to be angry! Soon, the wizard realizes that he needs all of the colors for everyone to be happy. I used this book for a vocabulary lesson for a small group of first graders, who seemed to enjoy it. There were numerous vocabulary words (tier 2) that are great to teach to young children. This book is on a second grade reading level.

For a few ideas on how to use this story in the classroom and some discussion questions, visit this blog: http://philosophyforchildren.blogspot... ( )

A creative wizard makes the world different colors one color at a time. The wizard soon realizes that the world is meant to be many colors not just one.

http://www.carolhurst.com/authors/alobel.html This website has many useful resources related to this story and other Lobel stories. There is information on how to use Lobel to teach emergent readers.