School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 1-Children will need no words to help them understand the utter joy the protagonist feels as he explores the simple wonder of painting in this enchanting, wordless Italian import. As in Crockett Johnson's "Harold" books, magic occurs whenever this boy applies color to a background, in this case, a stark white wall. Surprises appear on every page as the boy applies the paint and the images spring to life. Children will love guessing what each color will bring forth-and what will happen next. These scenes offer a great springboard for impromptu activities involving color and animal naming and for counting practice. Lots of white space and bright colors help young children focus on the goings-on; simple, childlike, expressive drawings add to the appeal and empathy for the young painter, especially at book's end, when it seems as if the last roll of color will yield no surprises. Of course, it does, in a most heartwarming and wonderfully satisfying way-for the boy and readers alike. VERDICT A winner for all picture book collections. Use to introduce a simple painting activity, and pair it with the books in the Harold and the Purple Crayon canon.-Carol Goldman, Queens Library, NY © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
A cute child in a bowl cut goes wild with buckets of paint in this wordless book. Using a roller, the child paints a white wall successively all-over magenta, blue, green, gray, yellow, purple, and orange. Just as Harold created a living environment with his purple crayon, in this book the act of painting the wall draws and brings to life a succession of animals, revealed in white crayoned outline as the paint covers the wall. On the magenta wall, birds appear, but they fly away. Fish materialize out of the blue wall, but similarly, they swim away. A stegosaurus snarls scarily from the green wall, and a huge elephant squishes the child into the corner of the gray wall. A tall giraffe on the yellow wall lifts the child by the back of the shirt, and a purple aardvark tries to steal the roller. Indefatigably, the young painter continues, and persistence is rewarded; a delightful puppy emerges from the orange wall. Finally: a friendly animal to play with. This simple, wordless narrative neatly expresses the theme of so many wordier and more convoluted picture books: if you keep trying, you can get what you want. Or, more simply, eventually you will find the friend who is the right size and wants to play with you. A sweet celebration of the imagination and nifty validation of persistence. (Picture book. 2-5) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
