The Rainbow Goblins - Ul de Rico

by Lauri Griffin | More from this Blogger

03 Mar 2008 05:48 PM

I had The Rainbow Goblins book on my desk for several weeks now. I've been trying to figure out how to describe it. It's a picture book. But I wouldn't show it to young children. It's a fairy tale where good triumphs greediness, but it's message is subtle.

I was first introduced to Ul de Rico's The Rainbow Goblins by an art teacher with a masters degree in gifted education. She used the book to introduce lessons in color. The pictures are oil-on-oak panel paintings. The paintings have a unique vivid look, and also feel very magical and otherworldly. The colors are marvelous, there are rocks glowing in the setting sun, water illuminated with light, magic sunsets saturating the world with color, stars twinkling in a deep blue sky, beautiful birds, and a rainbow of course.

The story is a simple one. Seven goblins hold a land in fear. Each goblin lives on the color of his name, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet. They prowl the valleys and suck the colors out of rainbows. They hatch a plan to travel to where the rainbows are born. Inside a cave they wait out a storm. But the roots of flowers above them strain to hear their plans. The flowers drain the colors of the Rainbow into their petals, the goblins become tangled in their own lassos, then drown in a deluge of colors. No one in the valley weeps for them. The Rainbow is reborn and lifted up the flowers that had saved it, transforming them "into glittering dragonflies and butterflies and splendidly plumed birds".

And yet, I wouldn't share it with just any young child. The pictures of the goblins are frightening. They don't look like drawings. They look real. And the picture of the goblins drowning and melting into colors is disturbing. It is a beautiful and unique book. Many of my classmates said they had grown up with the book and loved it as children. My children were impressed with the paintings, but I waited on sharing this book until I felt they were old enough to handle the scarier illustrations.

The Rainbow Goblins was originally published in 1978 in Germany.

Also See: The Cranky Sun - Jerry Kramsky

Girl in a Cage - Jane Yolen and Robert J. Harris

Fairy Tales with a Spin - the Picture Books of David Gordon

Learn more about Lauri Griffin

Lauri lives in Colorado with her husband and three sons. Amidst all the laundry and packing of lunches, she tries to keep parenting fun.

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JMcReynolds (95) 10 Mar 2008 10:04 AM

I got this book for my sister when it first came out (she was 9). She loved it, and is now reading it to her daughter, who is 2, and also loves it. I was a little startled, but I guess she knows her own kid. I was going to wait a bit longer because I too remembered the goblins drowning pictures as disturbing.

Lauri Griffin (2703) 12 Mar 2008 06:12 PM

I would wait bit longer. It really is a beautiful book, but yeah, I don't think it's a good fit for very young children.

awackattack (5) 17 Nov 2008 04:12 AM

"The paintings have a unique vivid look, and also feel very magical and otherworldly. The colors are marvelous, there are rocks glowing in the setting sun, water illuminated with light, magic sunsets saturating the world with color, stars twinkling in a deep blue sky, beautiful birds, and a rainbow of course." How could you deny any age this? Not all beauty comes with out context, I think it is essential for children to be exposed to all aspects of beauty - horrorfying or not. And as a Kindergarten teacher and parent, I know it is my role to especially not create a shallow, protected world for my children. Ugly Goblins, Beautiful Horror, that all exists in reality, let them decide what is 'too scary' for them. They are capable of a lot more than you allow.