“One” is a wonderful story about friendship written and illustrated by Kathryn Otoshi. It’s a book about colours standing up for each other against Red.

Blue is a quiet colour, who liked looking up at the sky, floating on waves, and splashing in puddles. Sometimes though, he wanted to be other colours. Yellow was always sunny. Or regal like Purple would be nice. But overall being Blue was cool, unless he was with Red. Red was a hot head, and liked picking on Blue. That made Blue feel… blue. The rest of the colours would sometimes try to comfort him, but they never stood up to Red. Everytime Red said something mean, he got bigger, and eventually every colour was afraid of him.

One day, One came. He had a different shape, with bold strokes and squared corners. One had a good sense of humor and made the colours laugh. Red saw this and got very mad. “Stop laughing!”, he said.

Then he rolled up to One. “Stop laughing!”

But One stood up straight like an arrow, and simply replied, “No.”

Red was mad, but One wouldn’t budge, so he rolled away. The colour all became numbers, while Red went to Blue and said what he always did.

“Red is HOT. Blue is NOT.”

“Red can be really hot, but Blue can be super cool,” stated Blue

Red blew a fuse, and tried to roll over Blue. So everyone took a stand, which made Red feel small. Red grew redder and redder, until he rolled away.

But Blue called out, “Can Red be hot… And Blue be cool?”

Red stopped in his tracks.

“Red can count too,” said One.

Red rocked and rolled, and turned into seven!

Sometimes it just takes One.

The theme of this story is friendship. I say that because the other colours/numbers stood up for Blue, strengthening their friendship. After that, they invited Red to be their friend and turn into a number. This book teaches its readers that they shouldn’t be afraid of standing up to bullies, no matter if it’s for themselves or others.

I thought the illustrations were very simple, but if there weren’t any words, I would still understand what the story is about.

All in all, this is an amazing book with a strong message; friendship.