A personable poodle introduces youngsters to some animal friends and to primary and secondary colors, too.

This Early Concepts volume utilizes engaging and expressive characters, bright hues, an appealing rhyme scheme, and a clear, simple concluding lesson to convey some basic concepts about color. “Would you like to meet my new friends?” asks a wide-eyed, gray poodle, who then presents the rest of the cast: a red bear, an orange cat, a yellow snake, a blue snail, a green frog, and a purple squirrel—and a rat, dog, and hog for good measure. The rhymed introductions are simple and fun: “Red bear braids hair. / Oh, what flair!” (Three braids in different colors suddenly appear atop the bear’s head.) “Orange cat knits a hat. / For a little rat.” (The rat and the cat are already wearing matching hats, but another one is underway.) Sentence structure and punctuation aside, the ideas flow in easily digested bites. At the end is a simple lesson in chromatics: “Did you know,” asks the poodle, “that a branch of science is concerned with colors?” On the final page, the book’s colorful cohorts present the primary colors and mix them to create secondary hues. Companion volume My New Haircut deals with shapes less effectively. The variously shaped haircuts, though silly, resemble hats or helmets more than styled hair, undermining the central conceit, and the concluding descriptions of a five-pointed star and a triangle should state “this star,” and “this triangle,” as not all triangles or five-pointed stars are equilateral.

This poodle lacks pizzazz, but it’s a decent effort overall.

(Board book. 2-4)