On a White Pebble Hill - Hardcover

This forced, unconvincing fantasy from the creators of Square Beak begins with a small girl playing on a "hill full of white pebbles." She swims in a lake, clambers out and enters a car, dodges falling rocks, climbs a mountain. The final spread makes explicit what the pictures have increasingly hinted at: the strange landscape is a dinner table, the girl's adventures her fantasies as she contemplates the setting. However childlike, these musings lose their vitality in this attenuated presentation: the revelation of their source is an anticlimax rather than a culmination. Throughout, the text is choppy and mystifying, rather than dreamy and mysterious, as must have been the intent. Chen's primitive paintings suggest the transformative powers of the imagination--as the story progresses the representations of several foods become more clearly discernible--but their simplicity often borders on crudeness and they can be ambiguous to the point of mere vagueness (are the white pebbles rice? potatoes?). Driven by an overly intellectualized concept, this book is so self-consciously about flights of imagination that it remains earthbound itself. Ages 4-8.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

PreSchool-K-Fantasy shows a unique face in this little girl's daydream. On the dedication page, a smiling plate and twisted fork hint that mealtime is the scene for this adventure. Mimi journeys through a bizarre landscape-readers are not sure where, but clues are offered. She builds castles out of sticky white pebbles. She climbs a broccoli-shaped tree and swims in a warm lake with noodlelike serpents. She fashions a car from a corn cob, pea pod, and cherry tomatoes. She climbs a golden-brown mountain that resembles a roasted chicken. Finally Mimi asks, "'Am I on a giant's dinner table?'" Then, reality takes over-she is with her family sitting around a well-stocked table. "'Pass the salt, please,'" her mother asks. This book's effectiveness is enhanced by its imaginative, expressionistic paintings. The girl's naively drawn face is charming. Paint is applied in broad brush strokes that show many layers of iridescent hues underneath. Mimi's corn-cob car whizzes across two pages in a blur of color and vegetables. Open-minded readers will be captivated by this unusual story.
Nancy Seiner, The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.