My Cold Plum Lemon Pie Bluesy Mood

February 11, 2013
Writing in engaging free verse, Brown (Around Our Way on Neighbors’ Day) follows the emotions of a boy named Jamie as he juggles his own pleasures with the demands of his family. As the title suggests, his moods are linked metaphorically to colors and foods. When his older brothers take over the sofa with their video game, Jamie’s mood changes from a “Grape-juice drinking/ On the couch/ Bobbing to the beat kind of mood” to a “gray kind of place/ Storm brewing inside/ That I hide/ ’Cause I don’t want any trouble space.” Evans (We March) develops Jamie’s character with care and attention, painting him singing into a homemade tennis-ball-and-toilet-paper-tube microphone, then streaking home from a basketball game to make it home by dark. It’s valuable both for its believable exposition of Jamie’s interior world and for its warm portrait of the life of a nonwhite family in which sharing is essential, rules are followed, conflicts are resolved, and meals (“Curry chicken!/ That’s my piece!”) are enjoyed together. Ages 4–up. Author’s agent: Jennifer Rofé, Andrea Brown Literary Agency. Illustrator’s agent: Rebecca Sherman, Writers House.

February 1, 2013
In a free-wheeling style and going far beyond the usual pairings of colors with moods, Jamie describes his day's emotional path. He begins on the sofa, bopping to music from his headphones: "I'm in a mood... / A being kind of mood... / A purple kind of mood / Cold-plum eating / Grape-juice drinking / On the couch / Bobbing to the beat kind of mood." Pushy, mocking older brothers send Jamie stomping into "a gray kind of place / Storm brewing inside / That I hide / 'Cause I don't want any trouble space / Dark and swelling / Looming / Gloomy gray kind of place." But at the basketball court, Jamie's competence reigns: "Fake left, slide right / Swish! and swish! / Sweet orange mood." Evans' digital collages, made with oil paint and graphite, buzz with motion and angle. Figures have lively eyes and eyebrows but awkwardly immobile mouths. Most spreads emphasize multiple versions of one hue (cool and warm purples; cool and warm yellows), while clothing and the browns of skin and hair provide highlights. A cheerful family meal and some peaceful dishwashing bring Jamie back full circle to his "living, breathing / Cold-plum eating / Being kind of mood," a realistically complex combination of pleasure, security and centeredness. This isn't the easiest scansion to read aloud, but it's worth it. Figurative and grounded--a nicely sophisticated exploration. (Picture book. 4-8)

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March 1, 2013

K-Gr 2-A boy describes each of the varying emotions he experiences in terms of color. Listening to music puts him in a purple kind of mood, while being evicted from the couch by his two bossy older brothers makes him feel gray. When his little sister asks him to draw a dragon, a gentle green feeling comes over him, which turns black when his siblings snatch the picture and tease: "Awww-it's cwayon time." The book could be paired with Dr. Seuss's My Many Colored Days (Knopf, 1996), which specifically discusses colors as they relate to moods, or Molly Bang's When Sophie Gets Angry, Really Really Angry (Scholastic, 1999), in which the palette reflects Sophie's changing emotions. Evans's digital collage illustrations, created with oil paints and graphite, effectively convey the mood/color correlation, although the shape of the children's mouths seems the same whether happy, sad, or angry.-Grace Oliff, Ann Blanche Smith School, Hillsdale, NJ

Copyright 2013 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 1, 2013
Preschool-G Remember mood rings? They could broadcast your mood by whatever color they turned. This young narrator also links his moods to color. He starts out in a purple mood: a cold-plum eating / grape juice drinking . . . / bobbing to the beat kind of mood. But when his brothers tell him to move! he goes to a gray kind of place / storm brewing inside. So it goes, his mood changing depending on what's happening. The colors feel right onorange does seem perfect for a game of basketball, and watery blue right for sailing on waves / in the sky of my mind. Throughout, there's a running story line about an African American family. The narrator is hassled by his older brothers until he takes a stand. He is happy when his brothers, little sister, and parents are all together at dinnertime. The artworkdigital collage created with oil paints and graphite and suffused with the individual huescaptures what the narrator's own art might look like. An excellent jumping-off point for discussionor writingabout readers' own colorful moods.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)

July 1, 2013
Jamie expresses his shifting emotions in a rainbow of colors. His cool purple "Grape-juice drinking...Bobbing to the beat kind of mood" shifts to a "Gloomy gray kind of place," when his brothers are mean, and so on. The stuttering free verse can be difficult to follow; Evans's hue-specific digital-collage illustrations provide most of this conceptually smart book's expression.

(Copyright 2013 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)