By Kathryn Otoshi
Red picks on Blue while the other colors watch and stay quiet, until a number called One turns up and shows them how to stand together.
Blue is a quiet color who likes to sit and watch the sky. Red is hot, and Red likes to pick on Blue. "Red is hot. Blue is not!" Yellow and Green and Purple and Orange all watch it happen, and none of them say a word, so Red keeps getting bigger. Then a number shows up. One is small and straight, and One says, plainly, "No." That's where the book turns. The colors realize they can count too, and standing side by side they add up to more than Red. Red shrinks down small. And then, instead of shutting Red out, they show Red how to count as well. The whole thing is told in colored splotches and about two hundred words.
Making the characters colors and numbers instead of children takes the sting out. Nobody in the room has to see themselves as Red, but everyone can still watch what happens as Red grows and Blue gets smaller. The text is short enough that an emerging reader can manage it alone, and short enough to chant the counting together as a class. And the ending surprises people: One and the colors let Red back in and teach Red to count, instead of chasing Red off. That's usually what gets a class talking, and it hands you a real place to start afterward.