MYSTERY BOTTLE
By Kristen Balouch
Hyperion, 2006
At my local library the picture books are shelved in six chest-high bookshelves along the front edge of the children’s room. I love to walk through these stacks and look at the books standing open on top. The titles that end up in this coveted position are random … sometimes they are new books, sometimes they are old books. Oftentimes they are books I would never have found if they had not been placed on top of the stacks on the day of my visit. This week the book MYSTERY BOTTLE, written and illustrated by Kristen Balouch, caught my eye.
The cover of MYSTERY BOTTLE spoke to me. Breathy shades of green and blue and layers of story pulled me in … a boy and an old man together on a bicycle, a bottle corked with a map and filled with interesting people and places. And beneath all this fabulous art, another map, this one spattered with cities I have never seen: Mashhad, Roshkhvar, Bihud. I slipped the book into my library bag so that I could explore it at home. And what pleasant exploring it was! In eleven sentences–eleven sentences– Kristen Balouch paints a tale of separation and of the clever way one grandfather bridges it. This is the sort of picture book that inspires a writer to examine every narrative more closely, to consider every word more carefully, and to strive for more story, less words. Read this one for the pure pleasure of it.