STOLEN SMILE

"Yesterday, in the schoolyard, I lost my smile," recounts the unnamed, pigtailed narrator of this keenly observed drama from a Belgian team. Well-meaning friends and family ask her what's wrong ("Did someone step on your toe?" asks her best friend); Daddy dresses as a clown. Still, the girl's smile won't return (there's actually a blank spot where her lips should be). "Why did I always have to be smiling, anyway?" she asks herself. "Did my mom and dad love me, or did they love my smile?" But the girl quickly bucks up and confronts her smile thief, a boy named Willard. The girl's forthrightness literally knocks Willard for a loop, and soon she's grinning from ear to ear. Goossens's distorted characterizations and chiaroscuro stylings may be off-putting for some children (the girl's aunt, who correctly pegs Willard as a tease, is quite frightening), but the compositions convey the heroine's emotional depth. The hot orange that he favors on almost every page eloquently reflects the girl's inflamed feelings, and the acrylic paint looks as if it has been applied to concrete and then halfway washed off—a technique well suited for a story that unfolds on that emotional crucible otherwise known as the blacktop. Ages 3-7. (Oct.)