The Colour Thief

The Colour Thief is a delightful picture book about Zot, who comes from another planet where there is no colour. The story tells of Zot travelling to a colourful planet because he thinks that the colour would make the planet a happy place. Once on the planet he decides to steal all the colour, one colour at a time. As the colours are stolen the images reflect what the world would look like without any green, blue, yellow and red. Finally only the colour orange is left. Zot then meets a little boy carrying an orange balloon in the now grey world. The image of the boy is very reminiscent of the French film The Red Balloon (1956). Zot acts without thinking and takes this last colour, too, leaving the young boy standing bereft in the totally grey world. As the boy looks so sad, Zot feels guilty and returns to the planet to give all the colours back. The boy is delighted and as a reward gives Zot the orange balloon to take home with him in order to brighten up his grey planet, which it does. This lovely story has a great deal of potential for discussion about the rights of stealing and also the importance of colour in our world and could easily be linked with an art and science topic at Key Stage 1. Reviewed by Fiona Collins, consultant.

Suggested Reading Age 3+