Kaito's Cloth

Australian artist Chapman's world is populated with mysterious hybrids. Is the heroine Kaito, with her folded paper nose, doll or human? Is the portly blue Lord of Flight, to whom Kaito brings her dying butterflies, bird or insect? The palace of the Lord of Flight, perched on the craggy Mountain of Dreams, overlooks a Chinese willow-pattern landscape with a field of cabbages below. Despite this tumult of invention, story and pictures coalesce. Kaito climbs the Mountain to ask the Lord of Flight to revive her beloved butterflies. Millard, also Australian, employs Arabian Nights–style language with practiced skill: “Ah, Kaito, weep no more,” says the Lord of Flight, “for though their days were fleeting, your butterflies have danced upon the breath of heaven.” Although he can't restore them, he tells Kaito that the essence of the butterfly cannot die: “We must learn to look for it in other places.” Kaito returns to her home in the valley with an idea: sewing cloth with “ten thousand tiny stitches,” she fashions a kite; pictures imply that Kaito, too, takes flight. The dreamy text and otherworldly setting create a mildly hypnotic effect, yielding a bedtime story for anyone who's longed for wings. Ages 5-up. (Mar.)