yourguti

People who can see colors cannot possibly appreciate the taste, smell, sound, and feel of them as well as Thomas can. Thomas is blind, but in this color book, he shows that he knows the personalities of all the colors—and probably better than some sighted people. The book is black as night—but as we learn how Thomas sees color, we also get an impression of how there are different qualities to darkness, there are different aspects of black. Faría’s illustrations are all shiny embossing on the smooth, matte black paper, and so is the Braille translation that appears above the white text on each left-hand page. To Thomas, “Brown crunches under his feet like fall leaves. Sometimes it smells like chocolate, and other times it stinks.” The illustration of Brown is a scattering of leaves, at different angles. What’s genius here is that we can not only see the illustrations, but we can feel them. Both sighted and blind children can read the book, as it is written in both Braille and English (or Braille and Spanish), and it helps to bridge the gap between their very different worlds.

2023-07-03 03:27