The Black Book of Colors by Menena Cottin (Author), Elisa Amado (translator), Rosana Faría (illustrator)

Cottin, M., Faría, R., & Amado, E. (2008). The black book of colors. Toronto: Groundwood Books.

Close your eyes, and imagine the color blue.  How does it feel?  How does it taste?  Do you smell the hot pavement in the humid air right before a rainstorm?  Or the salty fresh breeze blowing off of a cerulean ocean?

Imagine not having the ability to see.  

The Black Book of Colors is a picture book, with pictures only in black using the text alone to describe what can be "seen" by the reader.  The text is raised in braille, as well as the pictures on the pages so one without sight can feel what is being described.    Not only is this a brilliant text to have as a resource if you were to have a blind student, but also to create empathy within students who do not know what it is like to not be able to see the pages that are being read.  

This text can be used in any K-8 setting.  The message behind the book is a concept that any child could appreciate and learn from. 

This story is unlike any other story that I have read before.  It is a must read/teach kind of book for children to understand what it is like to have a disability.  Once they can imagine what it is like they may begin to see the world in a different perspective and have a better understanding of disabilities in their own classroom community. 

What's inside?

Simile:  Red is sour like unripe strawberries and as sweet as a watermelon.  
For every color, the author uses simile to compare it with something in the real world. 

Imagery:
For this story to have a powerful message, as it does, the words inside have to be lyrical and descriptive to paint a picture inside of the reader's mind. 

He says that green tastes like lemon ice cream and smells like grass that's just been cut. 

Theme:
The author uses color as a theme throughout, which I think is a symbol for what the book stands for.  Color is the one thing that a blind person might have the hardest time imagining in their head.  An object you can feel and get an idea of shape and touch, but color has no physical state, so I believe that is why it was the focus of the book. 

How can we teach this?
Using this book as a teaching moment for understanding for disabilities would be a perfect lesson.  Challenge your students to write in their journals about describing their favorite color.  Have them use all of their senses other than sight to explain to someone who is blind how to see this color.  
Students will have an exciting time trying to think of how to present their color by personal memories and how they even see the color without their eyes.