Animus

Hong, whose paintings and animation have a cult following among young adults, enters the picture book genre with a strangely moody pop-up book about rejection. The small-format (5x7) images feature the smooth and seamless TV-screen look of Asian pop cartoons. The heroine, "a girl, a sensitive one,/ who longed for serenity/ when each day was done," reaches out to a big black dog on a chain, who snaps and growls at her. The girl's puffed sleeves, patent-leather Mary Janes and neatly trimmed dark hair testify to her good intentions as she alternates between trying to make the dog love her and lapsing into despair. (In one extraordinary image, little bluebirds like the ones in Disney's Snow White lift the dejected girl up by the straps on her jumper.) At last the girl sees that the dog treats others badly, too, and she is freed—not from the dog's ferocity, but from her own obsession with it. "It's not the sharp words,/ the claws or the fangs,/ It's what we do to ourselves/ that causes the angst," Hong concludes, suggesting that sometimes, happy endings aren't where one looks for them. Young readers, understanding the story on a literal level, will be drawn to Hong's artwork. But this edgy-looking book with its dark title will probably snare Hong's older fans, too. Pop-up engineering not seen by PW . Ages 6-up. (Oct.)