Starred Review This wordless, 80-page picture book opens with an elderly man waking up. He goes outside and we discover he lives at the seaside. After a floating bottle beaches, he opens it to find a piece of paper. He begins to draw: a picture of a boat. He places the paper back in the bottle and returns it to the sea. The action then shifts to a city, where a small boy finds an envelope at his doorstep. Inside is the drawing. And we watch as the boy draws a crude picture of himself inside the boat. The next thing we know, he is aboard it, flying to the old man. When he arrives, they embrace; the boy hands the man the envelope, and flies off. Inside the envelope is the picture the boy has drawn. Fin. This strange story is drawn in gorgeous, full-bleed, sepia-toned, sharp-angled Expressionist style, like storyboards for a Tim Burton film. But what does it mean? Some readers may postulate that the boy and man are the same person, separated only by age. After all, there are many parallels between them. Others may interpret it as simply an evocative dream. Whatever it is, it's a wonderful invitation to imagine. What could be better than that?

In this wordless book, an elderly man finds a bottle on the shore containing a blank piece of paper, on which he draws a ship, which leads to an encounter--or is it a dream?--with a city child. Coelho tells his wondrous (in both senses) story with a great number of panels in a commanding sepia and blue palette.

An old man on an island and a young child in a city form a connection through messages in bottles and ships on paper in Brazilian Coelho's wordless, dreamlike spectacle. An elderly white man wakes, alone but for a few avian companions, and discovers a blank piece of paper in a bottle washed up on the shore of his island home. After some consideration, he pencils on it an intricate drawing of a ship, returns the paper to the bottle, and tosses it back into the waves. Elsewhere, ensconced in an urban landscape, a dark-haired, pale-skinned child comes home to find an unmarked envelope on the doorstep—inside is the old man's drawing. From here, a journey commences—maybe in reality, maybe in a dream—bringing the two characters together in a brief, touching meeting. As with all wordless picture books, this narrative is a negotiation between illustrations and readers. Are these characters grandfather and grandchild crossing space? Future and past versions of the same person transcending time? Or perhaps simply a pair whose loneliness is eased by dreams born of isolation? With spreads defying the barrier of the gutter, varied visual perspectives, and expertly paced page turns, Coelho's methodical cacophony of highly detailed visual invention successfully (if narrowly) avoids miring the narrative momentum in its artistry. A nuanced physical and emotional landscape aimed to capture experienced readers but likely to snag the occasional neophyte as well. (Picture book. 8 & up)