From BookWatch Reviews

Retro Radio Rainbow teaches picture book readers the seven colors of the rainbow, but adopts an unusual approach to the effort that taps author Aaron Zevy's personal radio collection and interest in radios.

What do radios have to do with color? Plenty.

Photos of old-time radios from the 1930s and 40s accompany the identification of 'red', 'orange', and other colors to add history into the mix. This especially inviting pairing features large, colorful photos of orange, red, yellow, and other colors of radios that additionally contrasts their size and disparate shapes and appearances.

The education thus arrives twofold: it's a survey of radio history and a lesson in different hues of each color, all in one.

Parents and educators who tire of the usual approach to identifying colors will find the creative effort attractive and unique, here. The retro radio display might even interest and educate them about the very different appearances radios can sport.

Libraries and teachers seeking a colorful tutorial that operates on not just one, but many levels will welcome the unique approach of Retro Radio Rainbow, which could only have come from a collector devoted to radio history as well as children's educational opportunities.

From Kirkus Reviews

Vintage commercial design meets early literacy in Zevy's colorful picture book.

"Radios were once so common, the author writes in his introduction, that their manufacturers produced them in a bevy of different colors and designs to better compete in the marketplace. Zevy lays out a rainbow of radios, guiding readers through every single color, providing multiple crisply photographed examples of different radio designs in that color, then asking the reader to pick out the proper color from a set of four each time. Each radio is unusual and quirky, likely identifiable only by older adult readers. "This radio is yellow. This radio is yellow, too. Can you find the yellow radio?" In his introduction, the author describes his passion for old radios, and this truly shines through—the visuals he provides are striking and compelling….The book's use of repetition is an effective literacy tool…"

From Blue Ink Reviews

Aaron Zevy presents a child's book of colors, seen through a variety of brightly hued radios from the 1930s, '40s, and '50s, in his children's picture book Retro Radio Rainbow.

Zevy is a collector of classic radios and an author of many books for adults, as well as several for children. Meant as a child's introduction to colors, this book also serves as a showcase for those distinctive radios.

Based on the pattern of the rainbow, the book shows a radio in a particular color ("This radio is red"). After two examples of radios of a certain color, the text asks the reader to identify that color ("Can you find the red radio?") in a group of four radios. This simple formula works well, resulting in a book that serves as a functional item—an effective guide to colors—and also an attractive feast for the eyes, combining two purposes much like the sleek radios it displays. The radios shown are truly works of art, and the excellent photographs capture their retro-style beauty.

Zevy's introduction briefly describes how radios in the 1940s and '50s were as common as computers in our day and notes that they had an array of designs and colors to stand out in the crowd. While this seems aimed at adults, rather than the toddlers who are most likely the book's target audience, it provides a charming beginning for those reading to their children.

Thankfully, the book mostly keeps its focus on its stated mission, even offering prime examples of the color indigo, that sometimes hard-to-pinpoint stop on the spectrum between blue and violet. The language is simple and direct, and the book design is bright and fun.

Retro Radio Rainbow is a delightful book that educates young children about the colors of the rainbow in an understandable and unique way.

Also available as an ebook.