Black is a Rainbow Color
Plot
A young black child ponders the colors in the rainbow and a crayon box and realizes that while black is not a color in the rainbow, black culture is a rainbow of its own. There is, however, black in a crayon box, black in nature (“a feather in snow”), and black in fun (“the bottoms of summertime feet”). And the black of Black culture is rich indeed, as the succeeding pages show. The rhyming text uses familiar symbols and motifs (black-eyed peas, a cooking skillet “for bread to fry,” blues music) as well as allusions to specific examples of African American art, music, poetry, and literature (“Black are the birds in cages that sing”) to create a mosaic of a community and culture that survives and thrives. Holmes’s illustrations use heavy lines and strong colors with soft touches of collage detail to represent everyday children as well as the iconic figures referenced in the text. Details in the back matter increase the book’s value: there’s a playlist; an explication of selected phrases (“Robe on Thurgood’s Back”; “Dreams and Raisins”); several poems by Langston Hughes and Paul Laurence Dunbar; “A Timeline of Black Ethnonyms in America” (from Negro to black to Black); and a bibliography (for adults). A treasure trove of positivity, strength, and pride for anyone seeking to uplift and educate young people. In bright paints and collage, Holmes shows the rainbow of black skin tones on each page while Joy’s text describes what “Black is” physically and culturally. It ranges from the concrete, such as “the braids in my best friend’s hair,” to the conceptual: “Black is soft-singing, ‘Hush now, don’t explain’ ”—a reference to the song “Don’t Explain” made popular by Billie Holiday and Nina Simone, the former depicted in full song with her signature camellia and the latter at her piano. Joy alludes throughout the brief text to poetry, music, figures, and events in black history, and several pages of backmatter supply the necessary context for caregivers who need a little extra help explaining them to listeners. Additionally, there is a playlist of songs to accompany reading as well as three poems: “Harlem,” by Langston Hughes, and “We Wear the Mask” and “Sympathy,” by Paul Laurence Dunbar. The author also includes a historical timeline describing some of the names that have been used to describe and label black people in the United States since 1619. [1]
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