The Black Book of Colors

by Menena Cottin

The Black Book of Colors by Menena Cottin is an incredibly innovative, sensitive, and stimulating book. This book contains no visual illustrations but only black pages with finely embossed drawings, eliminating sight all together and allowing the child to experience pictures without using sight as a sense. Due to its lack of visual stimulation, the child around whom the book revolves describes each individual color using other senses, challenging us to use descriptive language as it hasn’t been used before.

be the experience of a person with a visual impairment. What an exciting opportunity to peer into the experience of another in such a natural and authentic way.

Books are a fantastic medium for peering into the lives of others and reflecting our own. In every story of another, we can find a moment with which we can relate, finding similarities in the differences and celebrating them all the same. Isn’t that what life’s about?

Jenna Shaver is an accredited teacher, developing and educating young minds as a Certified Lead Guide. She is a graduate of Montessori Northwest, an Association Internationale training center and one of a small cadre of AMI-certified teachers in Idaho. She holds dual Bachelor’s degrees from Boise State University, one in Early Childhood Intervention/Early Childhood Education and the second in Elementary Education.