Black Dog Red House

Blocky, mimimalist drawings illustrate this playful and straightforward introduction to 13 colors. Boyd's ( Bailey the Big Bully ; The Not-So-Wicked Stepmother ) characters, a roly-poly child and an angular pooch known simply as ``black dog,'' appear as solid, unshaded black-and-white designs. As the narrator runs through the house and yard, he points out such things as the brown door, orange sun and green grass. Boyd assures clarity by featuring just one color per spread; for example, when ``Black dog watches as I wash with the pink washcloth,'' only the background and the square cloth are pink. Meanwhile, with each new color, a correspondingly hued triangle appears in the right margin. Uneven borders and freehand text also help lessen the severity of Boyd's planes of bold color. A few of these shades, however, are a bit off, or not the garden-variety tones kids associate with a given color: ``turquoise,'' for example, is actually closer to sky-blue; ``green'' seems more of an aqua. Still, preschoolers especially can respond to this basic concept book. Ages 3-7. (Apr.)