Red
by Laura Vaccaro Seeger; illus. by the author
Preschool, Primary    Porter/Holiday    40 pp.    g
10/21    978-0-8234-4712-1    $18.99

In Green (rev. 3/12), author-illustrator Seeger paired a color concept book with an ecological theme, following it some years later with Blue (rev. 9/18), which similarly united a consideration of color with one of emotion. Now she turns to red — sixteen shades of it, from “dark red” to “just red” — to tell the story of a lost fox. The painterly acrylic images and strategic die-cuts immerse viewers in the fox’s world and trials, from it trailing the pack to becoming lost to enduring hunger, injury, and capture, until its eventual return to its family. Hues range from the “light red” of sunrise to the “blood red” of an injured paw to the “rage red” of being trapped in a cage. The season is autumn, which allows Seeger the full riot of shades of reds, but the story is an anytime one, the fox a stand-in for anyone going through trouble on the way to security.

From the November/December 2021 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.