Reading fun, simple books about colors for toddlers is one of the best ways how you can introduce and teach colors to the youngest in the family.
Even if your little one won’t sit still, snuggled up on your lap for long, they will enjoy these fun, relatable stories, their favorite characters and bright, clear pictures in these books that will help keep their attention and focus.
You might have started your reading journey while your little one was still a baby. For us, our book collection started with black and white baby book, that help newborns develop their vision and actually SEE the picture.
Then we slowly added to our library all-time-classic and brand new titles of the best books for 1 year olds.
I’m sure you’ve been naturally incorporating teaching colors to your toddler much earlier (mainly through daily life experiences), at about 18 months old, it’s a great time start teaching colors and reinforce color recognition in a fun and more structured way.
Here’s the list of some of the best books about colors that are perfect for toddlers and even pre-schoolers.
Most of the books on the list have bright bold illustrations or high quality real life photography and focus on just one color at a time.
This approach is perfect for toddlers who are just starting to learn their colors as it doesn’t require little ones to differentiate too many colors simultaneously.
Books About Colors
My First Colours by DK
My 1 year old is absolutely obsessed with this book (and actually all other books in My First series by DK).
So what makes it unique and so engaging for little one? Well, everything!
Perfect size for inquisitive little minds, sturdy, easy-to-flip pages and bright photographs of real like objects. And it’s so affordable too!
I Love Colors by Margaret Miller
A gorgeous little book about babies and colors that babies and young toddlers are absolutely head over hills!
Each page foldout features one color and a big photograph of a baby with a colored item like glassed, hat, flower etc. Perfect little books for little hands.
Tabbed My First Colors Let’s Learn Them All by DK
This is another fantastic board book about colors by DK that’s a MUST HAVE.
It’s an extended version of the previous color book from the My First series.
Bright colorful photographs of real life objects provide lots of conversation and learning opportunities. Paired with separate tabs for each color that you can quickly flip there will captivate your little ones attention as they snuggle up with it during quite time.
Rainbow Colors by Juliana Perdomo
This is a gorgeous rainbow-shaped board book is one of the most recent releases, published in 2020. There are 7 sections, layers of this book each one corresponding to a specific color and featuring bright illustrations followed by a nice rhyme. I love that this book also teaches kids the proper order of the rainbow colors.
It’s recommended for pre-schollers but I guarantee even your 1 year old with be absolutely in LOVE with this color book.
Dog’s Colorful Day: A Messy Story About Colors and Counting by Emma Dodd
Your toddler with learn their colors with this adorable, so relatable messy dog!
He starts off the day with one black spot on his ear. As he runs, rolls, and trots through the day he runs into colors collecting colorful spots all over him. A drop of red jam falls on his back at breakfast, he gets a brown chocolaty pat from a friendly boy, his tail dips into blue paint as he heads out the door and more!
You’ll also appreciate the variety of the language it uses while the spots of color are splatting, squashing, and squishing onto the doggie’s white fur.
Cat’s Colors by Airlie Anderson
A lovely book of colors with a charming story about a cat who wanders through a grey day to collect colors. Cat sees, smells, and experiences the colorful world all around her and then something amazing happens! If you have any cat fans in the house (big or little) this book is highly recommended!
Bear Sees Colors by Karma Wilson
Lovely rhyming book about colors with adorable illustrations.
The book features a starkly white page of bear meeting a friend followed by a page lush with colors. Little ones will love following the bear and his friends to spy all the colorful things in this book.
Stanley’s Colors by William Bee
An adorable book about a busy hamster who travels around in different color vehicles.
So your little one not only will learn colors but vehicles too
Sturdy pages, bold illustrations and simple everyday concepts are perfect for little learners.
Penguins Love Colors by Sarah Aspinal
A sweet little story about mama and her penguins who are named after flowers: Tulip, Tiger Lily, Dandelion, Bluebell, Violet and Broccoli. They use their colors to color their snowy world and paint a colorful surprise for Mama.
I love how the prompts in the story that encourage conversation. Like “Do you think they made a mess?” or “Do YOU know which penguin painted which flower?”.
Highly recommended.
Not Quite Black And White by Jonathan Ying
A great rhyming book of colors that features animals wearing a different color on every page. The pictures are all black and white except for the colored item of clothing on the animals. Besides beeing a book about colors it also has an important message behind the story that everyone is special in their own way.
Every Color Soup by Jorey Hurley
If your little one loves to cook (and to cook I mean to be around when you prep food and have his/her little nose in everything you make) this book is a MUST HAVE.
Every Color Soup is a super simple how-to story of how to make a delicious vegetable soup.
Bold illustration and simple text paired with all the colorful veggies (that you can also count!) win in every way.
As a side effect your little one might even start to like veggies more!
I see this to be a great for any age. Toddlers will learn colors, veggies and some kitchen tools while older kids can do counting and actually make a soup themselves following a very easy recipe at the end.
Freight Train by Donald Crews
This book was first published in 1978! There’s a reason it’s been popular among toddlers for over 40 years! Trains tend to be pretty popular for this age, so this book captures interest from the start.
The illustrations are bright and minimal which is perfect for young kids. There are very few words on each page. But in its simplicity hiding a true gem.
Not only this book teaches about colors but also about other totally age-appropriate concepts like speed (“fast!”), location (in/out) and even disappearance (gone! At the end).
I came across a brilliant suggestion while reading some of this book reviews on Amazon and it goes like like:
“Try reading this book with sound effects–mimicking the sound of the train slowly chugging on the tracks and speeding up. The tunnel, bridge and city portions have a different sound too, especially the city where the train must blow its horn over and over again to warn city dwellers that the train is passing through, and as the train speeds through the night and to its destination, I modulate my tone and my sound effects become softer and softer until we work up to the “Gone” which I say in a whisper. My son loves the overall effect of the pictures with my sound effects, and he gets very excited about reading the book. I have come to love it as well because I can be imaginative in my delivery and build an overall emotional/tonal experience for my son. This book isn’t for everyone, but we like it a lot at our house” – by HLS Madison, WI
Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert
This gorgeous book is a little to complex for young toddlers. But it’s a perfect color book for preschoolers. Not only it teaches about colors but also a huge variety of flowers and the actual process of what it takes to grow flowers.
These books will help your toddler learn their colors on no time.
Once they know their colors you can move to color mixing books and books with more complex illustrations in terms of colors, shades, multi-color details.
What are your favorite books about colors? Just type in the comments below. We’d love to know!
2 Comments