From Publishers Weekly
"Lyrical" text and "extraordinary, light-filled" paintings celebrate the earth, children and the diversity of the world's ethnic heritages, said PW. Ages 4-up. (Sept.) Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From School Library Journal
Grade 1-4-A poetic picture book and an exemplary work of art. The simple text describes children's skin tones and hair in terms of natural phenomena ("...the roaring browns of bears"; "...hair that curls like sleeping cats in snoozy cat colors") and then describes love for these children with rich colors and flavors ("...love comes in cinnamon, walnut, and wheat..."). Hamanaka's oil paintings are all double-page spreads filled with the colors of earth, sky, and water, and the texture of the artist's canvas shines through. The text is arranged in undulant waves across each painting. This might be paired with Arnold Adoff's Black Is Brown Is Tan (HarperCollins, 1973), for younger readers, or his All the Colors of the Race (Lothrop, 1982), for older students, or read alone in celebration of diversity.Barbara Chatton, College of Education, University of Wyoming, LaramieCopyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Ages 3-8. How better to celebrate ethnic diversity than to look to children, the hope of the future? This glorious picture book, with its spare, lyrical text, does just that. Illustrated with oil paintings of youngsters of all ages, the carefully worded text rolls in serpentine swirls across pages on which children "who come in all the colors of the earth" laugh, smile, ponder, join hands, and rejoice in the common pleasure of being young. Upbeat and exuberant, this is a selection to share. Deborah Abbott


From Kirkus Reviews
This heavily earnest celebration of multi-ethnicity combines full-bleed paintings of smiling children, viewed through a golden haze dancing, playing, planting seedlings, and the like, with a hyperbolic, disconnected text--``Dark as leopard spots, light as sand,/Children buzz with laughter that kisses our land...''-- printed in wavy lines. Literal-minded readers may have trouble with the author's premise, that ``Children come in all the colors of the earth and sky and sea'' (green? blue?), and most of the children here, though of diverse and mixed racial ancestry, wear shorts and T-shirts and seem to be about the same age. Hamanaka has chosen a worthy theme, but she develops it without the humor or imagination that animates her Screen of Frogs (1993). (Picture book. 5-7) -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Booklist
"How better to celebrate ethnic diversity than to look to children, the hope of the future? This glorious picture book does just that."


Book Description
Celebrate the colors of children and the colors of love--not black or white or yellow or red, but roaring brown, whispering gold, tinkling pink, and more.


Card catalog description
Reveals in verse that despite outward differences children everywhere are essentially the same and all are lovable.


About the Author
Sheila Hamanaka is an award-winning fine artist whose work has also appeared in Scholastic magazines as well as in Permanent Connections by Sue Ellen Bridgers and Barbara Campbell's Taking Care of Yoki. Ms. Hamanaka lives in Tappan, New York.

ANNOTATION

Reveals in verse that despite outward differences children everywhere are essentially the same and all are lovable.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Celebrate the colors of children and the colors of love—not black or white or yellow or red, but roaring brown, whispering gold, tinkling pink, and more.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

With her lyrical text and splendid oil paintings, Hamanaka ( The Journey ; Screen of Frogs ) offers a hymn to children everywhere, who are ``all the colors of the earth and sky and sea.'' Extraordinary, light-filled paintings accompany the single curving line of text on each page. A girl whose complexion is described as the ``crackling russets of fallen leaves'' turns a cartwheel in a sparkling autumnal scene. An Asian boy stares into the eyes of a lion, and both subjects are the color of the ``whispering golds of late summer grasses.'' Two bronze-haired boys play at the seashore, their skin the color of ``the tinkling pinks of tiny seashells by the rumbling sea.'' Hamanaka salutes the varieties of ``hair that flows like water'' and ``hair like bouncy baby lambs.'' She shows adults showering children with love that ``comes in cinnamon, walnut, and wheat,'' and ``amber and ivory and ginger and sweet.'' These joyful illustrations amply celebrate the richness and diversity of the world's ethnic heritages. All ages. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

"Lyrical" text and "extraordinary, light-filled" paintings celebrate the earth, children and the diversity of the world's ethnic heritages, said PW. Ages 4-up. (Sept.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Children's Literature - Jan Lieberman

The dazzling diversity of children is celebrated in this poem that uses metaphors of color to describe the beauty of children. "Children come in all the colors of the earth - the roaring browns of bears, and soaring eagles/ The whispering golds of late summer grasses, and crackling russets of fallen leaves..." Beautiful oil paintings of children from various cultures make this a joy to read and share.

Children's Literature - Beverly Kobrin

This joyous book in rhyme celebrates the diversity and oneness of all peoples. In her picture book for all ages, Ms. Hamanaka's lustrous oils illustrate the fact the "Children come in all the colors of the earth...."

School Library Journal