Chih-Yuan Chen,
On My Way to Buy Eggs
Kane/Miller , 2003.

The world may be drab and gray, as Chih-Yuan Chen's artwork suggests in this spare and lovely picture book, but a child's imagination will brighten any dull landscape. (Adults know that taking even a short walk with a child is a lesson in unforeseen possibilities.) There, the author invites readers to join Shua-yu on a simple errand: buying eggs at a neighborhood shop. This short city walk blossoms into a quietly wonderful excursion as we see the world through her eyes, meandering a bit and making stops along the way.

Chen's childlike sensibility is instantly apparent. When Shau-yu leaves her apartment, she travels along the sidewalk, balancing on the shadow of the roofline, as though on a tightrope, following the graceful shadow of a cat that is walking up above. She stops to bark at the dog that usually barks at her. When she finds a blue marble--"the color of cat's eyes"--she looks through it and shabby buildings topped with cluttering antennae are transformed: "The world becomes a blue ocean world. I am a little fish, swimming in the big, blue sea."

When Shau-yu finds a pair of glasses "that wants someone to wear them," she is transformed; she acts like a serious grown-up, pretending to be a mother when she asks the shopkeeper for eggs. He plays along, offering a piece of bubble gum for "your little girl." Shau-yu picks up speed on the way home, philosophizing, blowing gum, and picking the flowers that have managed to grow through the cracks of a wall.

In a world of modern picture books that seem to be growing ever brighter and busier, Chen's soft brown and gray palette stands out. Cut-paper collage, with imposing geometric shapes and angles, realistically defines Shau-yu's urban surroundings, while finely restrained line drawing lends touches of humanity: the thin ribbon around Shua-yu's collar; the crow's feet at the corner of the shopkeeper's eye that let us know he is smiling. The cleaning outlined smudge of shadows appearing on virtually every page, a presence that is real and yet not real, like a little girl's imagination.

This superb and gentle story ends on a silent note--no words on the page, just a picture of a happy father with ihs eggs, a flower tucked into his pocket, and a little girl blowing her bubble gum for a dog that, oddly, has a pair of glasses perched upon his ears.

Christine Alfano
Fall 2003