The Colour Monster by Anna Llenas

"Your emotions don't work well when they're all jumbled up.

You should try to separate them and put each one in its own jar.

If you like I ca help you. 

Let's try to make sense of how you feel."

In a French language bookshop in Ottawa I spied an amazing pop up book (see below) by Anna Llenas. My travelling companion told me she had another book by Anna Llenas in her library - The color monster.

The multimedia illustrations are downright splendid. Using wax colors, watercolor pencils, acrylics, pencil, and collage, Llenas lays out entrancing textures and hues in enthralling compositions with plenty of white space. Lines are scribble-style, checkered, and swirled; background paper is graphed, perforated, and newsprinted. Cardboard or cardstock cutouts, punctured and layered, look as though they could be felt by readers’ fingertips. Shapes are irregular and organic like home-cut crafts. Tugged across a blank white spread by the eager child, the multicolored monster trails collaged ribbons of color. Kirkus

Blurb: One day, Color Monster wakes up feeling very confused. His emotions are all over the place; he feels angry, happy, calm, sad, and scared all at once! To help him, a little girl shows him what each feeling means through color. As this adorable monster learns to sort and define his mixed-up emotions, he gains self-awareness and peace as a result. Everyone will enjoy sharing this concept book that taps into both socio-emotional growth and color concepts in a simple, friendly way.

Yellow = happiness; Blue = sadness; Red = anger; Grey = fear; Green = calm; but what about pink?

Anna Llenas lives in Barcelona - I wonder if she might be included in the next IBBY Congress 2028 which will be held in that city? Here are pages from the popup book:

I do like the idea of linking colours with emotions. My favourite book (from my childhood) is this one -Hailstones and Halibut bones Adventures in colour by Mary O'Neill. This is one of the newer covers: