Lemons Are Not Red

            “Lemons Are Not Red” by Laura Vaccaro Seeger is a very cute book about the wonderful world of color.  This is a simple beginner book which walks the reader through ten different objects and what color they are.  This seems easy enough, but Seeger does this is an extremely creative way.  The first two pages say, “Lemons are not RED”.  Both of these pages are yellow, with a cut out of a lemon.  The Lemon looks to be read because the next page is red.  When the reader flips the page they cut out of the lemon is now yellow and the text explains, “Lemons are YELLOW/Apples are RED.  The illustration shows a red apple.  The next two pages are similar to the first two, but this time the pages are orange and there is a cut out of a carrot.  The reader can see that the next page is purple.  Can you guess what is purple?

            Another interesting thing about this book is each pair of objects is related in some way.  The apple and lemon are both fruits, the carrot and the purple thing you are guessing about are both vegetables.  This is a great way to get younger children using clues and predicting about what will come next in the story. 

            Even though the illustrations in this book are very simple, they are very well done.  Each page that has a cut out on it has one solid color on each side.  Brush strokes can be seen on the other pages.  This give the book texture and makes it much more aesthetically pleasing.  This book would be wonderful to read aloud to younger student to have them make predictions or younger students could read it on their own.  All of the big words have either a picture or a color associated with them to help younger readers decode the meaning of the word.