ALA Booklist (Fri Apr 01 00:00:00 CDT 2016)

A kid sporting red overalls and facing away from the reader looks out over a serene, minimalist beach scene, all horizontal lines and slight ruffles of waves. "What is over the ocean?" the child wonders, and in each subsequent two-page spread, Gomi reveals the imagined possibilities, rendered in rich, saturated watercolor tones in the sky, while the beach below remains the same on each spread. As the pages progress, the kid's imagination becomes wilder. "Are there fairs over the ocean?" appears below a scene of myriad children on bright, fanciful carnival rides. Gradually, the child wonders whether there's someone else on a beach far away, and the sky reveals a similar kid in blue overalls gazing over the ocean. The spare text, wide horizontal swaths of color, and the child's motionless pose throughout give the book a contemplative, faintly somber feel, and if Gomi's sumptuous watercolor paintings look old-fashioned, it's because they are iginally published in Japan in 1979, this marks the book's first translation into English. A warm, inviting, and meditative celebration of imagination and wonder.

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

A girl who stands at the ocean-s shore, her back to readers, doesn-t move one iota in this breezy story, first published in Japan in 1979 and rooted in a familiar question: -What is over the ocean?- The girl-s imagination makes repeated leaps across the sea as Gomi (Bus Stops) follows the question with a string of hypothetical answers and further questions, tacitly inviting readers to embellish the girl-s guesses with their own. Though none of the musings is outlandish (-Maybe there are big farms. Maybe there are cities over the ocean-), Gomi-s bold, woodblock-like pictures bring a visual whimsy to each setting. The bottom third of each spread remains static, showing the girl on a stretch of beach beneath a swath of turquoise water; above, however, is a shifting landscape of imagined scenarios, including striped and checkerboard skyscrapers, a tableau of kids zipping around on amusement-park rides, and a menagerie of stylized animals. Attentive readers can enjoy not just the explicit questions but ones raised by tiny details like the ocean liner slowly crossing the horizon or the hot-air balloon taking flight in the final scene. Ages 2-4. (May)

School Library Journal (Tue Nov 01 00:00:00 CDT 2016)

PreS-Gr 1-- A dark-haired child in red overalls clasps hands behind his or her back while gazing at vistas of the ocean and wondering what might be beyond it. Each page turn leads readers to the child's imaginative speculation about farms, cities, bullies, amusement parks, exotic animals, and even a beach where another child mirrors the narrator's actions. A constant on the horizon is a steamer progressing along the page from right to left. Spare text and vibrant color are typical of Gomi's mood pieces. VERDICT The book's elegant simplicity lends itself not only to pointing out visual details but also to encouraging a listening child's own speculations. Perfect for one-on-one and small group sharing.- Gay Lynn Van Vleck, Henrico County Library, Glen Allen, VA