MYSTERY BOTTLE

A seven-year-old boy receives a mysterious package that takes him on a journey to a distant grandfather. The package contains a bottle that, when opened, releases a wind that blows the boy across the sea to his grandfather in Iran. The two meet over tea and get to know one another, with entertaining questions—“What books do you like?”; “What is slimier—a worm or a slug?”—explored peripherally in the illustrations. Delightfully dynamic cut-paper–style illustrations, scattered with cultural details of Brooklyn and Tehran, are overlaid on maps in English and Arabic. A final page of third-person prose provides background information that, if read aloud, distracts from the simple tale: The boy’s grandfather hasn’t seen his own son since 1978. Sweet, magical and visually fascinating. (Picture book. 4-7)