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
Reviewed on: 08/05/2002
Genre: Children's