What a beautiful, lovely book! A fox living in Monet's garden observes the changing of the seasons and, after some experimentation with effimery art, learns how to paint imitating the great impressionist painter. Beautifully illustrated, of high educational value: desire and appreciation of beauty, respect for nature united to passion for art. I like also the layout with the round windows and the fil rouge (the butterfly). Highly recommended.

This is a great book to show kids the importance of art and how it captures moments in time that we wish to remember and admire once their gone. Monet has always been one of my favorite artists because of his techniques and subject matter --especially his nature scenes. I loved the fantastical element of the fox trying to capture the beauty of the garden so he can enjoy it even in winter when the colors go away. He finally discovers painting as an outlet to capture the beauty to make it last even in winter.

I received an ARC of this book via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was the cutest picture book I've read in a while, and with a 3 year old niece, I've read quite a few. It follows a little red fox in Monet's garden. It's just a wonderful story!

A little fox in Claude Monet's garden is trying to find a way to capture and hold onto the beautiful colors of the garden all through the year. His efforts at preserving nature's colors all fail. As the seasons change, children will enjoy spotting a little butterfly flitting among the illustrations. Readers may also catch a glimpse of Monet himself within the pages. Find out how fox solves his problem and makes a new friend in the process!

I was expecting the illustrations to be similar to Monet's impressionistic paintings. Instead, the drawings are a bolder, more kid-friendly style. I think the illustrator has created a work that will draw children into the story and perhaps even inspire them to set up their own easel to copy the scenes from within the book. This book will debut at the end of March--just in time for the arrival of spring in all it's colorful glory!

Disclaimer: I received a digital copy of A Colorful Tail from NetGalley for the purpose of review. No other compensation was received.

A great little picture book about a fox and about colors. Throughout the story, the fox sees lots of colors like cerulean blue. Good story and excellent vocabulary words.

A Colorful tail is sweet story about a fox who wants to preserve the colors of the seasons throughout winter when everything is white.
The illustrations are nice and the story has a nice easy flow.
Thank you Netgalley for proving me with a copy of this ebook for me to give an honest review.

I was never a Monet fan until I saw the real thing at MOMA. I had no idea how large and how beautiful his water lilies were, until that moment in time. This book follows a little fox who hangs out in Monet’s garden and wonders how he can keep the colors of summer all season long. After spying the artist at work, the fox takes up painting. The story is nice and a tale, not a history. The art work is okay, part of me wishes the fox was walking in Monet’s work, or that information on the artist Monet and a sample of his work was included. Because otherwise, why mention Monet at all. Why can it not be some random artist. A nice book, but I don’t think it will be a buzzed about book.

Any book that introduces young children to fine art and artists in a way they can relate is commendable. Describing seasons with colors and capturing their beauty with paint is beautifully portrayed in this story. I enjoy how the "tail" was cleverly brought together and the usage of its characters. This deserves a place on every child's and art lover's bookshelf.

The sweet story of a fox who wants to celebrate the beauty of a garden by making ephemeral art. Set it Monet's garden in Giverny, this tale is beautifully illustrated, nicely told, and very relaxing to read.

What a sweet little story this is! One feels so sad for the poor fox at the stat of the book until finally through human kindness the fox achieves his ambition.
Such a lovely way to open the world of a painter to children, as well as instilling that fact that there can be good in every creature, and not to believe in stereotype accounts
A book for the young and young at heart.

A Colorful Tail is a lovely book about a fox who learns to paint by watching Claude Monet. Fox is trying to make the colors of spring last and he is finally able to by preserving them on canvas. This book has beautiful illustrations and is a very sweet and simple story. It also has uses some wonderful non-standard color vocabulary.

“A Colorful Tail: Finding Monet at Griveny” is a cute little story about a fox that wanted to preserve the colours she loved so much. It also serves as a little introduction of children to the arts, primarily to Monet, in a fun and adorable way but I think it would have benefited with different illustrations. There is a trend of making children books with simplistic art styles that sometime aren’t also of much quality and I do believe that such thing only pushes children away from books, instead of bringing them in.

On this particular case the drawings are cute but not as charming as could be.

We are introduced to Claude Monet on the book and on the very beginning we have a little note from the author, talking about the painter, where it says:

“He used a style o painting where small brushstrokes of paint are used to depict the colors and changing light during the different hours of the day and seasons of the year.”

And with a illustration style that tried to emulate that effect this book would end up being much more of a powerful visual experience that would neatly complete the narrative.

This is such a cute story with beautiful illustrations. This would be a great bedtime story to read to your child. Thank you Schiffer Publishing, LTD Schiffer Kids via NetGalley for the ARC copy of this book. I will be buying this book for my great-grand daughter. This is my honest review.

This is a gorgeously illustrated book with a nice story and I can see kids enjoying it.

The one problem I had with the book was the use of cerulean and cyan, indigo and lavender. The latter two were less intrusive, but the others seemed so out of place when every other color was simply red, yellow, green, etc.
First of all, I'm not sure kids would understand these larger, unknown words. They would probably get frustrated with them
.Second, if you do want to teach new color words maybe spread the love a little and come up with different shades of other colors as well, describing maybe the flowers. Just coming up with different blues was a little odd for me.

Overall though, a wonderful book.

What an adorable, charming little book! I loved the storyline and the ending made me laugh out loud with how cute it is. This would be a lovely book to get children interested in learning more about Monet. I will be reviewing in full on my blog in the next few weeks and I hope that more people will read this book!

Disclaimer: ARC via Netgalley
This is a wonderful picture book about a fox who lives in Monet’s garden. The story is about the ability to find a way to capture the color and beauty of nature. The artwork is beautiful. While the story is simplistic, there are some very beautiful details in the pictures.

I received an advance copy of this book via NetGalley. The vibrant illustrations were my favorite part, although I was sure how impressionistic they were. The story could be used with children in connection with seasons, colors, and art. While some have criticized the vocabulary, I liked the fact that a couple of my favorite color words were included, like cerulean and cyan. Children would also have fun looking for the butterfly and Monet on each spread. I wasn't sure where the story was going at first, but I like the idea of portraying art as a way to preserve beautiful scenes and memories.

I’ll admit, I requested this book solely because there was a fox on the cover. Now, don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy a well written children’s book and I’ve been known to review them from time to time, but they’re definitely not my go to by any means. I don’t have any kids, after all, and therefore don’t find much need to read them regularly. But on the rare occasion that I do happen upon one of interest, I definitely give it my attention.

As for A Colorful Tail, while I certainly appreciated the fox—adorable and perfect as so many of them are—and I was certainly a large fan of his love of colors, the actual text in the story was kind of a disappointment. The idea was great, the illustrations were beautiful, the introduction of art and Monet to young children was fantastic. But where this story lost me as a children’s book and will certainly lose many children was with its language.

Certainly no child interested in this particular book is going to be able to read a two syllable word. Chances are they won’t be able to read much at all. And to throw in words that the average child likely wont have been introduced to in any real way of understanding what it means definitely is going to take their interest away from the story. I don’t know about the rest of you, but my niece is going to be far more interested in Brown Bear, Brown Bear than the “delicate petals” and “cerulean blue” referenced in A Colorful Tail.

As an adult, I did really appreciate reading the authors note and the bit of background information that it gave as well as some cool hints into how the illustrations were going to be. Still, I hardly see a child being all too interested in that portion even if I was.

So, as great as the story is and as great as the illustrations are—hello, there, my beautiful fox—I just don’t see this book being a great hit with a lot of kids as a result of the advanced language it uses. I can certainly see it being worthwhile for some parents and children to be introduced to, but the average kid likely will want you to read that one book that rhymes to them again and again.

My daughter was really attracted to the illustrations in this book. I thought it was a good introduction to nature,more advanced colours plus of course Monet

Hmmm… A fox adores what he sees in a garden, but can't keep the colours he adores – the blossoms of the flowers get eaten, and the colourful rocks and autumnal leaves suffer similar negative fates. Until he sees a chap, who we would know as Claude Monet, painting. So the fox does too – and it's the most literal explanation for why the fox tail is called a brush you can get. I don't know why such a young audience need to know the colours 'cerulean' and 'cyan', but it's not just the vocab I find issue with – it's the completely daft and implausible story. Plus, the artwork holds not a patch of a patch on the original Monet. It's by no means offensively bad, but in a crowded market of really junior readers, this doesn't exactly shine.