Color

The prolific Heller's latest effort should tickle the fancy-and the palettes-of paint manufacturers everywhere. (And, oh yes, youngsters will be delighted, too.) This paean to pigment seems even more vibrant than Heller's earlier tomes. She leaves no color-producing instrument unexplored (``From pencils and markers and crayons and chalks.../ from paints in a tube.../ or a jar or a.../ box''), and appears to have outdone both Crayola and Joseph's celebrated coat in her range of sumptuous hues. Her examples of color combinations and printing are handsomely illustrated by four acetate overlays, as she ingeniously examines the color-printing technology in this book's manufacture (``The printers are/ some kinds of wizards,/ I think./ In miniscule [sic]/ dots they apply/ all the ink''). From its pictures of kids with painted faces, to its quartet of punchily plumed parrots, to an arresting optical illusion, this vigorous (if pricey) volume is splendidly splashy. Ages 7-up. (Mar.)