Fowl Play: Blue Goose by Nancy Tafuri

"When the farmer's away, the fowl will play."

So goes Nancy Tafuri's exuberant new picture book which celebrates the joys of colors--primary and secondary.

Farmer Gray's neat farm is as drab as drab can be: everything is a shade of gray--barn, house, tractor, hills and trees, and and even sky. Something will have to be done!

When he drives away (in gray overalls and in a gray pickup truck), the farmer's foursome of fowl decide it's time for a makeover. Red Hen opens a can of red paint and gets to work on the barn. Yellow Chick dips her brush into her can of signature paint and colors the flowers a sunny yellow. White Duck takes on the picket fence and turns it into a gleaming white, and Blue Goose paints the roof of the house her own hue of blue.

Inspired, the poultry pals branch into the secondary colors. Blue Goose and Red Hen pour together their colors to paint the farmhouse door a pulsating purple. Red Hen and Yellow Chick meld their colors to mix up a bright orange for the shutters, and Blue Goose and Yellow Chick pair their paints to come up with a glowing green for the grass and trees.

Having mastered the primary and secondary colors, Blue Goose and White Duck combine their colors to style a lighter tint of blue for the sky. Here the fowl encounter an issue: they can't leave the sun a humdrum hue, but how do they reach it? At last they fall back on the old pyramid of poultry trick. With Blue Goose anchoring the pillar, Duck, Hen, and Chick ascend in order, and Yellow Chick does solo solar honors with her own can of yellow paint.

Just as Red Hen is slapping a bright coat of red on the tractor, Farmer Gray putters into view. "It's finished!" shout Blue Goose, Red Hen, Yellow Chick, and White Duck. "SURPRISE!" Farmer Gray, now attired in blue overalls accented by a red bandanna, orange suspenders, and yellow straw hat with purple band, also brings home a new barnyard buddy, Pink Pig. As the sun goes down, Blue Goose turns everything into a deep blue landscape--except, of course, for a full glowing moon.

Just as spring is beginning her touch-up of our drab winter world, Tafuri's illustrations, executed in ink, glowing gouache, and penciled detail, remind us of nature's transformative colors. Beyond the striking individual illustrations, the book itself is artfully designed. Her backgrounds are flat, like coloring book pages waiting to be filled, while her animals are more nuanced, with soft penciled feathers accenting their colors. Most of the pictures show sweeping horizontal double-page landscapes. In contrast, the poultry pyramid is designed as an intriguing double-page vertical spread. Endpapers are a deep blue, and the book's back cover pictures a diagram on how to combine primary colors to make secondary colors, shades, and tints.

For very young children just learning theirs colors or slightly older students beginning to create their own personal palette of colors for art, Tafuri's brand-new Blue Goose is the perfect tool for learning to see color in a new light!

For teachable and printable pages with hands-on opportunities for kids to learn to make colors and use those colors to create their own versions of her illustrations, visit Nancy Tafuri's web site here.