Fresh fish soup, pirate games and ferry boat rides to school are some of the happy memories freshly served in this playful, sensuous tale of family reminiscences. Stojic (Rain) picturesquely portrays a pink-hatted girl who accompanies her mum and two uncles on her first trip to their childhood island home. Large, heavy brushstrokes, simple lines and sunny colors engulf readers in a visually gratifying experience. Alternating between the boat trip and the adults' sea-drenched recollections, the illustrations use distinct close-up perspectives to invite readers into the scenes. (In one, readers are eye-to-eye with a boy stretched out on his stomach across pebbly sand, smiling from behind one hand as he mischievously holds a bright red crab with the other.) Stojic's subtly sophisticated mixing of scale, perspective and color evoke motion (the undulation of sparkling waves across cobalt seas), while her unembellished text, in big black fonts of varying size, evokes emotion (e.g., the affection with which the grown-ups recall the small pleasures of their island childhood: "There's nothing like the feel of wet pebbles under your feet. Wet and cool and smooth"). Readers pulled in by the elegant simplicity of this book will savor the girl's "homecoming" as she takes her own first walk on the pebbly island shore and implants herself into the family's story. Ages 5-8. (Apr.)
