Nine animals, nine shapes, and sixteen shades of color'everyone can have fun discovering them all by turning Color Zoo's full-color pages and watching a lion turn into a goat, an ox into a monkey, a tiger into a mouse. . . .

1990 Caldecott Honor Book
Notable Children's Books of 1989 (ALA)
1990 Fanfare Honor List (H)

Color Zoo Board Book

ANNOTATION

Introduces colors and shapes with illustrations of shapes on die-cut pages that form animal faces when placed on top of one another.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Shapes and colors in your zoo, lots of things that you can do. Heads and ears, beaks and snouts, that's what animals are all about. I know animals and you do too; make some new ones for your zoo.

SYNOPSIS

What do a tiger, a mouse, and a fox have in common? They are all formed from shapes. Using die-cut pages, Lois Ehlert introduces animals, shapes, and color in this brilliantly designed board book.

FROM THE CRITICS

Children's Literature - Kristin Harris

Ehlert has great talent for creating books that are deceptively simple, yet challenging and rewarding for young children. Color Zoo has been issued in a board book format. It features animals in a series of die-cut pages that reveal a progression of animal faces by changing shapes and colors. The book has three sets of die-cut pages that progress through a series of three animals and then a final page with all the shapes creating a pattern. A companion book is Color Farm.

School Library Journal

PreS-Gr 1-- This uniquely designed book features a series of cutouts stacked so that with each page turn, a layer is removed to reveal yet another picture. Each configuration is an animal: a tiger's face (a circle shape) and two ears disappear with a page turn to leave viewers with a square within which is a mouse. The mouse's square frame, removed, reveals a fox. There are three such series, and each ends with a small round-up of the shapes used so far. That's not all. On the reverse of the turned page is the shape cutout previously removed with the shape's printed name. While the tiger and lion are not easy to identify in their geometrically shaped components, children will readily name the seven others and will delight in identifying both animals and shapes. Boldly designed pages easily carry to the rear of the room during story hours, and brilliant juxtapositions of vibrant primary colors will make children's eyes tingle. --Susan Hepler, formerly at Windsor Public Library, Conn.