The Story Behind A Rainbow of Shapes

Sometimes a children’s book begins with a story that has nothing to do with becoming an author—and everything to do with being a mom.

A Rainbow of Shapes began with my son.

The moment that started it

In kindergarten, I learned that my son was color deficient.

Learning that was heartbreaking for me as his mom. I wanted to help him learn without making him feel like there was something wrong with the way he saw the world.

I wasn’t looking for a business idea. I wasn’t trying to create a product.

I was trying to help my child.

I found a simple way to help him learn colors

Once he could read, I taught him to read the names printed on his crayons and markers.

If he saw a color differently, he could still learn what that color was called.

I also taught him shapes.

And I started thinking about how colors and shapes could come together through creativity and play.

Then the little moments started making sense

There was the red hammer his dad asked him to bring—and he never brought it.

There was the day he told me, “My mom has green hair like my teacher.” My hair was blonde.

There was the school artwork where he looked at a pink sky and told me, “What you mean mom look its pink in the sky.”

Once we understood that he was seeing colors differently, our family started asking a different question:

“What color do you see?”

That simple question became an important part of how we understood his experience.

Creating gave me something positive to focus on

As a mom, I could have spent all my energy focusing on the problem.

Instead, creating gave me something purposeful to build.

It gave me happy thoughts instead of constantly thinking, “My son has this issue.”

I wanted to create something that could help my son and other moms and children who might be going through something similar.

A Rainbow of Shapes was created in 2008

That idea became A Rainbow of Shapes in 2008.

The book brought together the things I had been thinking about: primary colors, shapes, creativity, imagination, and learning through play.

The original purpose is captured in the wording on the back of the book:

“An imaginative approach to help children with color deficiencies by using the primary colors of the rainbow in various shapes.”

That sentence still says exactly what I wanted the book to do.

It wasn’t about telling my son what he should see

The book wasn’t created as a medical resource.

It came from a mother trying to find a creative way to help her child learn.

I didn’t want my son to feel that his way of seeing the world made him wrong.

I wanted learning to have another doorway.

And the idea grew beyond the book

The book was one part of the story.

The larger idea was always about giving children opportunities to discover, imagine, learn, and create.

Years later, that idea became the foundation for bringing KidsWonderArt back.

Today, A Rainbow of Shapes is still at the center of that story—and the original idea is still important to me.

If you’re here because of the book

If the story behind A Rainbow of Shapes speaks to you, you can take a closer look at the book through the Shop page on this site.

Visit the Shop to learn more about A Rainbow of Shapes.

You can also explore the full KidsWonderArt story or visit Creativity & Learning for simple activities inspired by the original idea.