Before Colors: Where Pigments and Dyes Come From

by Annette Bay Pimentel, Madison Safer (Illustrator)

Overview

From award-winning author Annette Bay Pimentel and illustrator Madison Safer, Before Colors is an oversize nonfiction picture book exploring pigments and dyes made from natural sources—across time and around the world.

Colors don’t come out of nothing.
They always start somewhere . . .
With something . . .
With someone.

Discover how color is harnessed from nature in this survey of dyes and pigments from around the world. Organized by color—from yellow to purple to red and more—Before Colors marries a lyrical core text with tons of informational material for curious readers.

In the narrative text, readers will encounter markers and artists as they source and process materials, transforming the most unexpected things into vibrant pigments and dyes. The sidebars offer much more to discover, including extensive lists of specific shades, short bios of colorful characters, and more.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781419757068
Publisher:	Abrams Books for Young Readers
Publication date:	06/06/2023
Pages:	88
Sales rank:	647,677
Product dimensions:	10.00(w) x 14.50(h) x 0.65(d)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Annette Bay Pimentel is the author of several nonfiction picture books, including the Schneider Family Book Award honor book All the Way to the Top, Pura’s Cuentos, and Before Music. She lives in Moscow, Idaho.

Editorial Reviews

★ 07/17/2023

Why does the blue morpho butterfly appear to be such a brilliant shade? Why did Van Gogh love yellow so much? This encyclopedic text delves into an entire spectrum of questions surrounding how people create, see, and think about color. Sections ingeniously organized around different hues detail how interpretation of color is a product of perception, language, and culture, and introduce readers to “colorful characters” themed to the respective shades—along with Van Gogh, there’s Oaxacan weaver Juana Gutiérrez Contreras, who created natural dyes based on ancestral Zapotec traditions, and the Switzer brothers, who invented safety orange. Bay Pimentel’s conversational prose and Safer’s dramatic watercolor, gouache, and colored pencil illustrations make for vivid information grazing. Ages 8–12. (June)

Publishers Weekly

"An attractive and distinct STEAM compilation."

Booklist

****STARRED REVIEW*****
"Lyrical notes add wonder to a bright mix of creative arts and scientific fact."—Kirkus

***STARRED REVIEW***
"The perfect combination of art history and science, add this title to all nonfiction shelves and STEAM programming."—School Library Journal

"An attractive and distinct STEAM compilation."—Booklist

From the Publisher

★ 09/08/2023

Gr 3–7—A fascinating and vibrant introduction to the science and sociocultural impact of color. In this follow-up to Before Music, Pimentel and Safer delve into the history of dyes and pigments. Readers will learn about the science behind color---how we see and use it. Readers will learn about primary colors (not just red, blue, and yellow!) and which plant, animal, and mineral resources are used to create the dyes found on our clothing and other textiles. Each section is divided by the specific hue: Brown was most likely first created from burnt rocks; European paint makers used ground-up mummies to create mummy brown; and groups of people, such as Native American tribes, have used it to color leather, baskets, and fabric. Each section also highlights a "colorful character" who was known for using that particular color—Vincent van Gogh and his love of yellows or Mexican weaver Juana Gutiérrez Contreras, who created a long-lasting green dye, because green fabric often fades with time. Factoids are sprinkled throughout, including why money is green and how the production of some white hues caused many people to die from lead poisoning. This celebration of color is as vivid and elucidating as its subject. Safer's illustrations add layers to Pimentel's poetic text, and the design is impeccable. Back matter includes ways for kids to experiment with color and source notes. VERDICT The perfect combination of art history and science, add this title to all nonfiction shelves and STEAM programming.—Shelley M. Diaz

School Library Journal

★ 2023-03-29
How the hues that bring art and fabrics to life are made and used.

“BEFORE COLORS, blue gum trees swelter in the sun. Someone strips off leaves and boils them. She is making…ORANGE.” Sticking largely to colors produced from natural sources—with nods to a few manufactured hues such as mauve and the recently discovered “Vantablack”—Pimentel deftly describes how each in turn is derived, usually from multiple plants native to diverse regions of the world, from minerals, animal products, or other materials, like ground-up mummies for “mummy brown.” She enriches each entry with specific examples of its uses, with notes on topics from mordants to Vincent van Gogh’s fondness for various shades of yellow and the work of modern Indonesian artist Iwan Tirta in reviving batik. She mixes in more general considerations of the science of vision, too, such as how direct light rays and reflected ones produce different “primary” colors and how colors are differently perceived and classified in different cultures. Along with precisely drawn botanical and mineralogical vignettes, Safer underscores the author’s global perspective with frequent full-page scenes of artists and dyers, mostly women and often with children in attendance, linked by dress or surroundings to a broad range of times and cultures.

Lyrical notes add wonder to a bright mix of creative arts and scientific fact. (activities, quotation sources, selected sources) (Nonfiction. 9-12)

Kirkus Reviews