COLORAMA: From Fucshia to Midnight Blue by Cruschiform, 280 pp, RL 4
COLORAMA: From Fuschia to Midnight Blue by Cruschiform, a French creative studio based in Paris and founded in 2007 by Marie-Laure Cruschi, is a book for book lovers. And color lovers. Beautifully designed by Prestel Publishing, one of the world's leading publishers in the fields of art, architecture, photography and design, this is a book you will pore over again and again. While it is entirely possible to enjoy COLORAMA without reading it, it would be a loss. COLORAMA beings with a diamond of an introduction that sets the mood: 
I recall the attraction that certain colors had on me when I was a child. The red poppy tails, both delicate and strikingly powerful; the green lichen that covered our holiday home; the beige herds of sheep migrating across the Cevennes mountain range, the yellow, pungent earth-working equipment that seemed to sing to us; the violet stained beetroots; the black licorice candy that my grandfather used to love so much; the graying-blue colors, understated and hard to explain, that we once used to describe Mediterranean plants... Nowadays, I simply like a color for what it is and for the memories that it brings to me, as well as the ideas an stories it conjures up. Ultimately, each color has a history. Subjective and individual, singular and plural, this story is based at the same time on our own perceptions. The world of color is far more complex than it seems. Perception of color fully depends on who we are, our cultures and what era we live in. It has to do with sensibility and subjectivity. There are no two people who see or de-scribe a shade in the same way.
From that evocative introduction follows 133 two-page spreads that name and discuss a color, beginning with White Snow and ending with Moonlight, coming almost full circle on the color wheel. Many of the names of colors will be familiar, from pink to carmine to sepia and navy blue. Others seem to be poetically inspired, like Flowers of Sulphur, Bedbug, Glacial Milk, Purple Bishop, Aphrodite's Tears and Flower of Salt. The descriptions of the color tend to be more explanatory than the creative names, giving historical, geographical, entomological, (and so on) context to the color itself and name. Reading the descriptions can take you down a rabbit hole of curiosity, and you may find yourself doing a bit of researching, which is a great way to engage little readers exploring this book.
My favorite part of COLORAMA, being the organizational geek that I am, are the "annexes" that include an index of colors organized by palette and another index organizing the colors by theme! Starting with mammals and moving on to birds, insects & amphibians and mollusks & crustaceans, plants and fruits and vegetables are followed by sweet treats, clothes, uniforms, objects & utensils, modes of transport and more!
Source: Review Copy
