One

Title: One
Author: Kathryn Otoshi
Publisher: Publishers Group West
Date of Publication: 2008
Illustrator: Kathryn Otoshi
Genre Designation: Children’s Picture Book
Readability Lexile: K-2 (ages 4-8)

Summary:
One is a story about the color blue, although he enjoys being blue he sometimes wishes he could be sunny like yellow, or bright like green.  But overall he is happy being blue, except for when red comes by.  Red is a hot head, and picks on blue.  When this happened blue would start to feel bad about being blue.  All of the other colors knew that what red was doing to blue was not cool, but none of the colors spoke up to red.  Then one day it just took one, a different shape that had bold strokes and sharp corners.  Red grew angry that this one was getting all the attention from the rest of the colors.  Red tried to pick on one, but one wouldn’t budge and stood his ground.  One told the colors that if someone is mean and picks on you to stand up and, “No.”  The other colors grew strong and turned to numbers too!  Even blue grew strong and stood up to red.  All the colored numbers stood up to red who grew very, very small and began to roll away.  Then it came to blue, “Can red be hot... And blue be cool?”  Soon enough red counted too. 

Evaluation:
This story was simply amazing.  The author used paint splotches to represent the characters.  The splotches stretched and changed as the moods of the characters changed throughout the story.  The author blended rhyming, personification, and similes.  The author used rhymes within single sentences but also between sentences which allowed the reader to feel as though the colors were connected to one another.  The color splotches were given so many human qualities that as you read the story you almost start to picture what the color would look like if it was a person.  The author also uses similes when blue compares himself to the other colors using the word “like”.  Even with all the different literary elements that the author used within the story, she also did an amazing job of making the story about inclusion and bullying yet not hitting the reader over the head with the theme.  The illustrations, the word choice, the use of colors and numbers is simply brilliant.  The only minor negative point I have regarding this book is that all the color splotches are referred to as “he” there is female representation.  Even with that being said, I can’t say enough how much I LOVED this book.  It has been one of my favorites that I have looked at through all of my literature evaluations so far.  I have a hard time finding the words to truly explain why this book has touched me the way it has, and maybe that is all that needs to be said.  There is something special about this book, I recommend that everyone at least reads it once for themselves and decides if it as memorable to them as it was for me.

Illustrations:
I can’t tell you enough how great these simplistic illustrations were.  They were “simple” splotches of paint yet used in a way to express how they were feeling.  It was amazing how so little could tell so much. 

Mini-Lesson:
This mini-lesson would focus on alliteration and emotions.  Students would pick what color represents them.  They will then go and get a white paper plate and write their alliteration about their color.  Once done students get water colors and get water color their plate with that color to make their color splotch. 
Example: Peppy Pink People...