I pored over this book of poems about colors as a kid, and love reading it to my kids. The attempt to pin down the essence of colors, their feelings and associations, seemed very right to me.

This was given to me by friends of my parents when I was very small. It seemed like a fuddy-duddy book, but I absolutely loved it. I don't think I was reading yet, or had just started, so my mother read it with me. I'm happy to see it's a classic and still around. I can still see some of the illustrations in my mind's eye even though I haven't opened the book in 200 years.

After a shift in one of London's hospitals, my husband asked "Would you have a short story for a patient of mine? She's so bored. A nurse tried something by Hemingway but it finished with the word "cock" or something like that. Not appropriate at all. She's an old woman."

That night, I searched my books for a story that might help the hours pass for this nameless, faceless, woman. I reached for a collection of fables but found them too cruel. Malamud, too alien. Those in The Sunday Times Magazine were too harsh. What a failure literature has become! All the anger that pervaded its pages. Where was the solace? Where was the steady rhythm of sentences ending only to begin with another like the soothing swish of waves?

Rejecting the shelves of my life's work teaching literature, I turned to a slim volume of poetry I had loved in childhood. It was Hailstones and Halibut Bones: Adventures in Color. Opposite a picture of a woman in a veil, long before such figures were commonplace on our streets, I read:

Time is purple
Just before night
When most people
Turn on the light -
But if you don't it's
A beautiful sight . . .

I could imagine enduring pain to those words. In his voice, I could listen. Yes. Positively.
"Try this," I told him on the way to his next shift.

Leonard Weisgard's illustrations are the best. If you can find it, read that original edition.

Hailstones And Halibut Bones, Mary O'Neill's renowned 1961 work of poetry about the colors of the spectrum, has become a modern children's classic. Leonard Weisgard's lovely illustrations are a perfect accompaniment to the poems.

We really enjoyed this book, luckily we bought a copy with the original illustrations which are wonderful and fit perfectly with the book. Two or three pages on each colour tell you the obvious-things that are that colour, and the not so obvious-feelings, sounds and experiences. Although the poetry isn't wonderful, we enjoyed the thoughts behind the words and look forward to making some of our own. Lovely, creative book.

Some great poetry for kids, with each poem based on a color. Good stuff.

Incredible poetry, fluid and breathy artwork✨

Love the illustrations, the poetry not so much. As several other readers pointed out, the use of "red Indian" was startling and interrupted the flow.

I liked thinking about colors as not something only seen or experienced with my eyes. I've read colors connected to emotions before but this poetic version talking of different light, smell, feelings and more was enjoyable. I enjoyed the story of how it came to be because of an unfulfilled writing deadline. Kudos to the editor who realized the potential behind the notes and observations about color.

Love the illustrations and color. The poems are good. They made me think of colors in a different way.

Unlike another reviewer I didn't feel like I was being dictated to but encouraged to think about colors and see them differently. Just my opinion.

Do agree with another reviewer - the reference to "red is an Indian" was jarring and took points off.

Hailstones and Halibut Bones was first published in 1961. It was one of the first Braille books I owned, and I read it so many times I probably had some portions of it memorized. It was a terrific way for me to explore colors without having to pester my parents or siblings with questions like: “What color is macaroni and cheese? … What color are flies? … If light can’t get out of black holes and we can’t see them, how do we know they’re black? … Is a robin red all over or only in some places?”)
It didn’t save me from believing crazy stories, though. For at least a year, one of my younger brothers had me convinced that the air that came out of our noses when we exhaled was booger green. (I figured that if what Mary O’Neill said about the air being green under grape arbors was true, then it had to work the same way with our noses, right?! … Ah, the logic of children!)
Apparently, I wasn’t the only blind child to be captivated by O’Neill’s verses. She wrote about the visual aspects of color but also touched on emotions, ideas, scents, tastes, and sounds. Some of the most striking and memorable lines for me:
“Gold is the sunshine/ Light and thin/ Warm as a muffin/ On your skin.”
“The sound of black is/ “Boom! Boom! Boom!”/ Echoing in/ An empty room.” (That one kept me up many nights, imagining!)
“Tiredness and oysters/ Both are gray,/ Smoke swirls/ And grandmother curls/ So are some spring coats/ And nannygoats.” (Of course I loved this line, growing up on a goat farm, even if none of our goats were gray.)
“Green is a flutter/ That comes in Spring/ When frost melts out/ Of everything.”
Even before I left middle school, I understood how important this particular book could be for another blind child. I gave my original copy away, passing it on to someone else, hoping they would read it with the same curiosity and wonder that I had. Even as I gave it away, I missed having it on my shelf.
I recently found the book was available from Seedlings Braille Books for Children and bought it. This edition had more information about the author as well as an introduction that hadn’t been part of my original copy. Unsure if I’d have the same pleasure in it that I’d had when I was a kid, I put off reading it. But on a rainy Saturday night in October, there’s nothing better than curling up with a pile of books and losing oneself in the pages for a while.
Reading Hailstones and Halibut Bones after some newer additions to the subgenre of color books for children (particularly two by Drew Daywalt), I was just as drawn to Mary O’Neill’s poetry as I was when I was young. Some of the imagery no longer applies—who has a white telephone now? And some of the rhymes felt a little too sweet for me. Still, the book is a well-deserved classic.
If I kept every Braille book I brought into my house, I’d soon be sleeping in a tent on the lawn! So I have to be choosy. But I’ve tucked Hailstones and Halibut Bones in among the other Braille titles I don’t want to part with, alongside those Drew Daywalt books featuring Duncan’s cantankerous crayons.

Found this on my bookshelf last night - read it for the first time in 1961 or 1962. Enjoyed it again!