cover image GET RED!: An Adventure in Color

GET RED!: An Adventure in Color

Tony Porto, , conceived and designed by 3CD (aka Porto, Mitch Rice and Glenn Deutsch). . Little, Brown, $14.95 (32pp) ISBN 978-0-316-60940-1

This first outing by three advertising writers uses stock photos to deliver a one-two punch: a funny school-problem story and a wry "infomercial" for the color red. The nameless narrator, who is never pictured, tells of his talking red crayon—now AWOL—which started the school year teaching the boy fun facts about its hue and helping him color art projects. The boy's reminiscences and accompanying illustrations chart the crayon's growing distress (and diminishing size). Instead of using photos shot specifically for the book, the creators build the story around stock photos, which creates a fragmentary feel. Red-eyed frogs, blinking traffic lights and character shots of human faces flash one after the other like images in a 15-second television spot. The text charges along across the pages, while factoids run along the bottom. Often the juxtapositions result in confusion: for instance, when the crayon "boasted of red friends who made it big in sports," the page divides into a photo of a matador (top) and a baseball (below), with a factoid about the ball's 108 stitches ("If you unraveled the red thread and stretched it out, it would be seven feet four inches long!") Classmates, clerks at checkout counters, even family members make an appearance, then disappear. Too sophisticated for a concept book, this volume may be best suited to Gen-Xers who will admire this creative team's eye for arresting photos and design. Ages 6-10. (Sept.)