I wanted to write a book that talked about the emotions of

The words of Dolly Parton, “I wanted to write a book that talked about the emotions of children, which is the rainbow. We all have moods. We talk about being blue when we're sad, and being yellow when we're cowards, and when we're mad, we're red,” shimmer like light through glass — simple, playful, yet bearing a profound truth about the spectrum of the human heart. In these words, Dolly speaks as both artist and sage. She reminds us that emotion is color, that the soul paints itself daily in hues of joy, fear, anger, and hope, and that to understand ourselves and others, we must learn to see — and not to fear — this radiant spectrum.

In ancient wisdom, the rainbow was never a mere trick of light. It was a bridge between realms — between the divine and the mortal, the eternal and the momentary. To the Greeks, it was Iris, the messenger of the gods; to the Norse, it was Bifröst, the fiery path connecting Earth to Asgard. Dolly’s words echo this same spiritual vision: the emotions of children, and indeed of all humankind, form a living bridge between innocence and understanding. Each color, each mood, is not an imperfection but a sacred message, guiding us toward empathy, humility, and compassion.

She chose to speak through the heart of a child — for children, more than anyone, live close to truth. Their laughter is pure gold; their tears, honest rain. They do not hide behind masks of pride or restraint; they feel in full color. When Dolly speaks of blue, yellow, and red, she reveals how even the simplest feelings carry the grandeur of nature itself. Blue, the sorrow of the sky; yellow, the trembling of dawn; red, the fire of life. To name our emotions through color is to remember that we are part of creation’s palette — ever-shifting, yet whole.

There is a story told of Wassily Kandinsky, the painter who saw sound as color and emotion as form. When people laughed at his strange paintings, he said that he was merely painting what the soul feels. A trumpet blast became yellow; sorrow became blue; chaos became red. Like Dolly, Kandinsky understood that art is not only beauty — it is the translation of feeling into a universal language. Both remind us that to understand emotion is to understand art, and to understand art is to understand humanity.

And yet, in the modern age, we often teach children to hide their colors — to calm their reds, to silence their blues, to dim their yellows. Dolly’s wisdom resists this quiet tyranny. She speaks as a mother of music and a keeper of joy, urging us to let children — and ourselves — feel freely, to honor every hue of the heart. For if we deny the darker shades, we also lose the brilliance of the light. The rainbow, after all, is born from both sun and storm.

Her words carry not just comfort but command. They tell us that maturity is not the fading of color, but the mastery of it. To be wise is not to stop feeling, but to learn the harmony within feeling — to blend anger into courage, sorrow into wisdom, and fear into humility. The rainbow does not apologize for its contrast; it thrives in it. So too must we learn to see beauty in the tension between joy and pain.

The lesson is eternal: do not fear the colors of your soul. Let them speak, let them shift, let them teach. When you feel blue, do not drown — look upward, for the sky holds you. When you burn red with anger, let that fire forge justice, not destruction. When you tremble yellow with fear, let it remind you that courage is not the absence of fear, but the rising of light through it. In doing so, you will find that the rainbow lives not only above you, but within you.

And so, children of tomorrow, remember what Dolly Parton has said: your heart is a canvas painted by the hands of life itself. Every mood, every tear, every burst of laughter is sacred pigment in the masterpiece of your being. Guard it. Cherish it. And never let the world make you forget the colors that make you human.