While Betsy often prefers to hand Kate children's picture books to consider that are chock full of details, at a certain point she is forced to come up with books that contain none of that. And you cannot get much more basic than Little Blue and Little Yellow here. Your heroes are essentially paint swatches, after all. In the course of our conversation, though, Kate surprises Betsy by coming up with a discussion of everything from the origins and accuracy of certain nursery rhymes to whether or not Lionni's Italian background affected which gender each color receives in this book.