A Color of His Own by Leo Lionni

A Color of His Own by Leo Lionni

Rating: 5 stars

Lionni's sad and lonely chameleon is bummed about the fact that all animals have a color of their own, except for chameleons.  They change color wherever they go.  He wants a color of his own.  Just like everyone else has.

He wants it so much that he sticks himself to a leaf, thinking he'll be green forever.  But then fall comes and...oops, he turns orange.  Then red.  And then the leaf falls to the ground, with the chameleon in tow.  Drat.  (Hate it when that happens.)

Still frustrated, he meets an older and wiser chameleon and tells his sad story--he can't find his own true color.  The old chameleon explains that that's the beauty of being a chameleon, but perhaps they should stick together, and they'll be different together.

"Won't we ever have a color of our own?"

What a nice and comforting moral: rather than conform to what everyone else has or does or is, find someone with whom you can be different.

This is such a simple, little book and there are a zillion activities that you can do with your kid.  There are actually too many for me to list here, but google it and you'll find exactly one zillion.

But the best is to do what I just did, I think--have the book out, and when your little Ben asks about it, pull them up on your lap and read it to them.  And hope really hard that they find someone that can stick with them and be their color with them, forever.