The Black Book of Colors Book

This book is a beautiful thing, but gets four stars and not five because i wanted it to be a bit more beautiful. the words are about different ways of perceiving colours: what they taste and sound and smell like to someone without sight ("green smells like lemon ice cream and smells like grass that's just been cut.") the pages are black, the words are in braille as well as print, and they're illustrated with raised tactile drawings.

but here's the thing: the braille isn't real braille (it's not deep enough to read), and the tactile pictures aren't really designed to be read tactually. as a concept it's lovely, but the economic realities of mass book production means that it sort of fails in its execution. a blind child couldn't read this independently. a sighted child learning about braille would learn that it's very hard to feel and that blind people must have super-senses.

so i have mixed feelings: i love it, but i wish that it realised its potential.