Groovy Joe We're Going to Build a Rainbow

Groovy Joe We're Going to Build a Rainbow by Eric Litwin, illustrated by Tom Lichtenheld

The book is a song about a rainbow. It gets a little complicated. The story is not much of anything. Kids did not care for it. At least it was not very long.

Black Prism

Black Prism is set in a fantasy world where colors are very important and have some special powers. We follow the goings of a fat boy who watches his village destroyed. We later learn that he is the illegitimate son of the "Prism", the sort of Emperor over the kings. However, we later learn that the Prism is actually the brother of the Prism in disguise. The society values people that can identify minute differentiation in color. It also has some practices that we would find abhorrent. The government servants participate in a "release" when they have reached the end of their service. They get to talk with the leader, and are then executed by him, "releasing" them from this life. Individual Kings have power to do whatever they so desire. However, the Prism also has some similar power, giving some means of balance. The book goes on for a while, and also follows the path of a girl from the same village who was the daughter of a disgraced general. Things seem to gradually come together at the end, though it takes a long time to get there.

Shades of Grey

Having thoroughly enjoyed every Jasper Fforde novel I've read, I had high expectations with this book. Unfortunately, I was let down. I had trouble getting involved with this book.
After reading it, I'm still not sure what it was about. I think it was some futuristic society, where shade and color play a very important role. There is also a dictatorship in place. When people don't conform, they are sent off for a "reboot". However, out heroes discover that a reboot is actually death. They want to go and reform society. In the end, however, they decide to conform like everyone else.
It also has color smuggling, arranged marriages between colors to get the proper hue, and analysis of color profiles to determine compatibility. I'm sure he spent a while thinking of this scenario. But, alas, it just didn't make a good book. And the wittiness of Ffforde's other novels just wasn't here. There was nothing to save it from its confusion.