It don't matter if it's black or white

...or red. The general idea is that babies see (or are at least most interested in) these three high-contrast colors, which Zachary has proven time and again (well, the light/dark bit at least) -- his eyes lock onto and follow lights, shutters, our black picture frames, and of course his beloved sheep. Granted, scientific studies say this is all hooey:

Recent studies at the University of California in Berkeley have shown that infants as young as 2 weeks of age have color vision and can distinguish a red object from a green one even when these are perfectly matched in brightness. Infants' color vision is not likely to be as rich and sensitive as adult color vision since the receptors and nerves in the eye that are most sensitive to color (again, in the fovea) are not yet mature.
(http://www.ski.org/Vision/babyvision.html)

Whatever the studies say, he does love his high contrast colors. Of course, designers take advantage of this information to try to sell you the black, white, and red bedding that babies will "be able to get the most visual data out of". I think it looks a little Tim Burton / Addams Family for a bedroom, but hey, whatever floats your boat (or fovea). On the other hand, a book of common shapes that are presented in black and white sounds a bit more interesting, so Meredith had to grab the well-executed Black on White board book, along with its natural companion White on Black. (I'm going to pitch a sequel to the publisher that I'm titling "White on White". I think most of the cost would go into the binding; the printing would be negligible to convey the white polar bear in a blizzard. If you're wondering, Black on Black is already covered, though apparently re-envisioned as some kind of sci-fi series. I wonder how much input the illustrator had on that one.) Though the images all feel to me like either 70s-style silhouettes or rorschach tests (particularly that black butterfly on white background), Zachary definitely can stare at pages from the book for minutes at a time, as you can see. He's clearly the son of a librarian!