Are Your Stars Like My Stars?

PreS-Gr 1–Children are asked to consider how people experience color across the world in this culturally diverse concept book. In a patterned text, readers learn about how children see and experience a variety of colors, including blue, gold, brown, green, yellow, red, pink, black, and white. For example, “Do you splash in a puddle/when the world is washed clean?/Are the leaves fresh and bright?/ Is your green…/…like my green?” A child in boots and a raincoat walking in a spring rain appears on the verso, while a girl peeks through a lush tropical rain forest on the recto. Neither locale is identified. The book concludes by asking readers if everyone sees the same thing, emphasizing what people have in common, with the last illustration showing two children sitting together and looking up at the same star. Helakoski’s rhymes are lyrical and flowing, ready to be read aloud, and the style, which is question-heavy, encourages discussion. Sheffield’s illustrations are bright, colorful, and eye-catching, making the title appropriate for group sharing. Although the diversity of places and people depicted, as well as the sentiment of the book, is admirable, there are some flaws in the execution. The tiny font often gets lost on the colorful pages and some colors inexplicably receive four pages rather than one-to-two pages.