Fuse 8 n’ Kate: Little Blue and Little Yellow by Leo Lionni

While I often prefer to hand Kate children’s picture books to consider that are chock full of details, at a certain point I am forced to come up with books that contain none of that. And you cannot get much more basic than Little Blue and Little Yellow here. Your heroes are essentially paint swatches, after all. In the course of our conversation, though, Kate surprises me by coming up with a discussion of everything from the origins and accuracy of certain nursery rhymes to whether or not Lionni’s Italian background affected which gender each color receives in this book.

Listen to the whole show here on Soundcloud or download it through iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, PlayerFM, Audible, Amazon Music, or your preferred method of podcast selection.

Show Notes:

As I mention on the show, one of my favorite websites to turn to is The Prindle Institute for Ethics, particularly their Teaching Children Philosophy posts. Here is what they had to say about Little Blue and Little Yellow.

We’ve seen dedications but rarely do they make their way into the actual title of the book.

There’s more than one blue in this story? I mean that’s just confusing, that is.

Kate comes up with an entire system of who is and who isn’t popular in this book. After all, these are the kids who play together…

But these are the kids in school. Apparently white and a different yellow are out of the clique.

When mama blue goes out shopping, she leaves her kid at home. Someone wrote a post-it note and put it in the library book I lent to Kate to remind the parent reading this book to their child to ask how the kid would feel about that. I guess this book is another example of a parent just wandering off and leaving their kid unsupervised at home.

Only at this point does the background become an active participant, perhaps replicating blue’s state of mind.

Be sure to check out the site Call Me Booklouse if you’re into older children’s books. It’s run by the irrepressible Christina Hoover Moorehead and well worth your time (as is her TikTok).

And again, if you’re in Burr Oak, Michigan on Saturday, July 27th (2024), come and watch me on a float and then signing books with David Small as part of the Burr Oak Heritage Fest. It’ll be a fun time!

Kate Recommends: The reality show Ren Faire

Betsy Recommends: The Why Would You Tell Me That? podcast

Filed under: Fuse 8 n' Kate