The Story of the Sea Glass

This somewhat labored story of Nicole and her grandmother is nonetheless chock-full of visual pleasures. Owens's (The Caribou Alphabet) panoramic scenes of Nicole and Nana searching for sea glass will appeal to ocean lovers and may well lure a few newcomers to Maine's breathtaking coast. Unfortunately, the lengthy text is excessively mannered and the plot-within-a-plot needlessly complicated. After a prolonged lead-in filled with Nana's memories, the book's central flashback story is triggered by a piece of smooth red sea glass the woman finds on the beach. She tells Nicole a story about how she accidentally broke an heirloom red glass vase and threw the broken shards into the sea to hide them. Despite an occasional pleasing image, Nana's speeches often overemphasize the book's themes (""This red glass is frosted now, and I can't see through it. It can't give us the rose-colored world I saw through the magical red vase. Yet the sun makes it glow in a wonderful new way""). Owens's watercolors, drenched in summer sunlight, portray the warm relationship between Nicole and her grandmother--and go a long way to ameliorate the strained tone of the text. All ages. (Dec.)