Your Rainbow by Lynn How and Jennifer Jamieson – Blog Tour

Written in rhyming verse, this book works its way through the colours of the rainbow, describing a host of different emotions and personality traits.

The sentiment of this book is beautiful – it’s basically a song that describes of the hopes that a parent has for their children, and the ways they see said hopes manifest in the world around them. It makes the point that for there to be a rainbow, there must be rain, and that we should welcome the lessons the hard times bring.

Though my children are slightly above the target age for this book, I did try reading it aloud because I think there’s something inherently pleasurable in reciting poetry. For the most part, this was no exception, though I did find some of the rhymes and meter a little tricky. Sometimes when this happens with a book, it’s due to my Scottish accent but in this case, I suspect its largely down to an ambitious number of syllables in each line. This isn’t necessarily the be-all-and-end-all of the book, but at times, I did struggle to get the rhythm right.

There’s also a lot of fairly advanced vocabulary in this book. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it is worth pointing out – I know children who love to be challenged and others who might find the larger words off-putting.

The illustrations in this book are absolutely stunning – full of detail and talking points on every page. The colour palettes are sublime and there’s a wonderful warmth and humour to all of the pictures. I mean, just look at the cat on the cover up there – how cute is that kitty!? And all the constellations – so much to chat about, and that’s without even opening the book.

As I said above, my children are slightly past the target demographic for this book, but every once in a while, I’ll still buy them a picture book that I think will catch their attention. This probably isn’t one of those rare, exceptional books, but I might well have bought them a copy of Your Rainbow when they were younger and I’ll definitely consider it when choosing gifts for my various Niblings.

What are your favourite rainbow themed books? Are there picture books that you would buy for older children? I’d love your recommendations!

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Below is the information I got from Random Things Tours – thanks for sending me a copy!