When I first opened the book, One, by Kathryn Otoshi, I immediately was reminded of Little Blue and Little Yellow, which I mentioned in a previous post about creativity. But when I started to read it, I realized that even though the idea of colorful splashes of dots was familiar, the subject matter was quite different.
It turns out that these two books complement each other nicely, and toddlers and preschoolers will enjoy each of them for different reasons. While Little Blue and Little Yellow involves the mixing of colors, One is about bullying and the power of numbers.
There are many similarities and differences between these two books. If you are home schooling your child, you could even use these them to introduce the concept of a Venn diagram to your 5 or 6 year old child.
Since I already wrote about Little Blue and Little Yellow, let's focus on One. Here you'll find Blue, who gets along with all of the other colors, except for Red. Red picks on Blue, and says things like "Red is hot. Blue is not." When no one speaks up, Red just gets bigger and bigger, and starts to pick on all of them.
That was until "1" arrived...then "2," "3," "4", "5," "6," and...I'll leave the rest to your imagination.
Getting children and adults to speak up against bullies is not easy. It takes a lot of courage to do so when those around you remain silent.
That's why books like One that start the conversation early are fantastic resources for parents. Another similar book for children between the ages of 6 and 10 is Say Something, by Peggy Moss.
You can find some more resources relating to bullying at these sites:
- Bully documentary - PBS.org
- StopBullying.Gov - US Department of Health and Human Services HRSA site
We all know that there's great power in numbers, but without the power of one, would it even exist?