The Palette of 12 Secret Colors by Nari Kusakawa – Review

This is a very clever story that caught my eye right away because it is so original.  Cello is a talented girl who goes to school on a special island called Opal where the most colorful birds in the world live.  These birds lend their colors to people who have the gift of borrowing the colors from them to paint onto something else, which then becomes valuable for its beauty. 

Cello has this gift, but doesn’t know how to handle it very well.  It looks like she might flunk out of school because she keeps making mistakes, even though she passes the tests on paper, and she is worried that she won’t be able to channel her abilities as her teachers expect.  During one test, she turns the teacher pink instead of the fabric she is supposed to color.  Each student is assigned a bird, which really belongs to someone who lives on the island, and Cello has an adorable one called Yoyo who does her best to help Cello.  The two of them make a great team, but when thieves show up and steal the birds, including Yoyo, Cello has to work to save Yoyo.  For the rescue she is counting on the support of the school doctor, Dr. Guell, who always has to fix her mistakes.  The birds are very smart and do what they can to help in their own rescue, and my daughter and I really like how pretty and devoted Yoyo and her feathery friends are.  Cello’s friend Mousseline has an adorable yellow bird called Kechnopa who is large and round and just too cute, and Dr. Guell’s bird, Olga, is a girl and very jealous of Cello, which is kind of funny. 

This would be a great anime, but for now, we are excited that new volumes are in the works to keep us happy.  The author/artist, Nari Kusakawa, has a great website, Lotus Position, that is in Japanese but has a gallery of her artwork that is easy to find and definitely worth a look.