Get ready for a riot of colors and a garden of savory flavors!

A nonfiction picture book for ages 4-7, How Do you Eat Color explodes off the page with vivid images of delicious fruits and vegetables that are as delightful to read about as they are enticing to imagine munching on. The book begins, “Do you know how red tastes?” Does it tickle the tongue? Is green sweet and cold like your favorite sorbet? Can yellow be as yummy as blue? Feast on color when you eat fruits and vegetables.”

The narrative roughly follows the arc of the day: “In the early morning, yellow can be syrupy like a spoonful of mango, or mild like corn on the cob. But at noon you brown like a yellow banana and run into shade to rest.” Finally, at bedtime: “As you tuck yourself in like a yam, bundled like plums in a basket, a day of colors darkens into the black of sleep.” Along the way, observant young readers will giggle as they spot the happy, camouflaged chameleon on every spread.

Although it exists only the page, How Do You Eat Color nonetheless offers a heady synesthetic mix of sensory experiences. And the bonus? It’s all good for you!

How Do You Eat Color
Written by Mabi David
Illustrated by Yas Doctor
Translated from the Filipino by Karen LLagas
ISBN: 9780802856388
March 18, 2025, Eerdmans Books for Young Readers

Review: Kirkus

You can buy a copy here* or find a copy at a library.

*Book purchases made via our affiliate link may earn GLLI a small commission at no cost to you. Review copy provided by the publisher.

Award-winning opera singer Nanette McGuinness is the translator of over 120 books and graphic novels for children and adults from French, Italian, German and Spanish into English, including the much-loved Geronimo Stilton Graphic Novels, as well as Tiki: A Very Ruff Year (nominated for the 2023 Eisner and Harvey Awards) and Alice on the Run: One Child’s Journey Through the Rwandan Civil War (2023 GLLI YA Translated Book Prize Honor Book, 2023 Mosaic Prize winner, 2023 Excellence in Graphic Literature Finalist and 2023 Harvey Award nominee). Accolades have also gone to her translations of Ellie in First Position (2024 ALA Top Ten Graphic Novels for Children), Magical History Tour: Vikings and Magical History Tour: Gandhi (both 2023 Excellence in Graphic Literature Finalists), Luisa: Now and Then (2019 Stonewall Honor Book; 2020 GLLI YA Translated Honor Book; YALSA’s Great Graphic Novels for Teens in 2019) and California Dreamin’: Cass Elliot Before the Mamas & the Papas (2018 Harvey Award; YALSA’s Great Graphic Novels for Teens in 2018).